Michael McHale

Michael Collins & Michael McHale – The Lyrical Clarinet, Vol. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:06 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Michael Collins MBE is one of the most complete musicians of his generation. Continuing his distinguished career as a soloist, he has in recent years also become highly regarded as a conductor and in 2010 took up the position as Principal Conductor of City of London Sinfonia; he works with leading orchestras around the world both as a soloist and as a conductor.
Committed for many years to expanding the repertoire of the clarinet, he has premiered works by some of today’s most highly regarded composers, including John Adams, Elliott Carter, Brett Dean, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In addition to commissioning and supporting new compositions, he is also a champion of well-crafted arrangements for the clarinet of works originally for other instruments. It is this area of his work that is so vividly demonstrated in the Chandos series “The Lyrical Clarinet”, of which this is the third volume. Most of the arrangements on this album were made by the pianist Michael McHale, who accompanies Michael Collins on the recording.

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Michael Collins & Michael McHale – Reger: Clarinet Sonatas (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:43 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Michael Collins and Michael McHale here present a new volume in their exploration of the lyrical clarinet repertoire. Their journey through works that encapsulate the variety of nuance and colour of which the instrument is capable, inevitably led them to another great composer for the medium: Max Reger. The Brahms-influenced (see CHAN 10844), essentially lyrical and tender works recorded here contrast particularly with the more familiar, contrapuntally rich – and loud – organ music usually associated with Reger. The three clarinet sonatas are among fourteen such duo works in his published output, composed between 1890 and 1915: effectively his entire compositional career. Although his continuing adherence to sonata-form principles is clearly evident in the two Op. 49 sonatas, the greater formal clarity of Op. 107 suggests that the lightness and geniality, even plainness, which Reger ascribed to it form part of an underlying ‘classical’ simplicity of conception, for all the music’s ‘modernistic’ surface. On top of his conducting career (City of London Sinfonia, Philharmonia Orchestra) and various recitals around the world, Michael Collins will hold a four- concert residency at LSO St Luke’s in the 2017 – 18 season, dedicated to chamber music and including recitals with Michael McHale.

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