Krommer: Complete Clarinet Concertos

This historic first complete recording of the clarinet concertos by František Vincenc Kramář (1759-1831), known to the European musical world as Franz Krommer, offers a comprehensive picture of the composer's music for an instrument undergoing rapid development at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The double album contains three solo clarinet concertos, two concertos for two clarinets, and the Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra. Two of these works receive their world premiere recordings here: the Concerto in E flat major, op.52, in Krommer's version for clarinet, and the Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra.

Krommer was born in Kamenice near Jihlava. He spent the first part of his musical career in Hungary before moving to Vienna in the mid-1790s, where he became Kapellmeister to the Imperial Court and court composer in 1818. His music combines brilliance and immediate appeal with solid compositional structure, harmonic inventiveness, and a masterful understanding of wind instruments. Krommer's concertos therefore rank among the finest works in the clarinet repertoire of the Classical era.

The well-known Concerto in E flat major, op.36, is joined by two works that Krommer originally composed for other instruments and later reworked for clarinet: another Concerto in E flat major, originally written for oboe, and the dramatically charged Concerto in E minor, originally intended for flute. The two concertos for two clarinets develop a dialogue between equal soloists, with the later work culminating in a brilliant Alla Polacca finale. The album concludes with the previously unrecorded Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra. Its score and parts were discovered in the archives of Czech Radio.

At the heart of the project is the young Czech clarinettist Marek Švejkar, who is joined in the two concertos for two clarinets by leading French clarinettist and conductor Paul Meyer. They are accompanied by the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Jiří Habart.