Summerwinds Festival: Van Wauwe, Dörken: Vom Broadway nach Buenos Aires
Annelien Van Wauwe, Clarinet
Danae Dörken, Piano
There is an America where freedom means the opportunity to belong to the cultural majority and to be open, or rather diverse and open, indeed to be together and to live something new in it. “Without a doubt,” noted Antonín Dvořák in 1895, “the seeds for the best music are hidden in all the races that mix with each other in this great country.”
Annelien Van Wauwe and Danae Dörken pursue the “American Sound” “From Broadway to Buenos Aires.” The Belgian clarinetist and the German-Greek pianist are among the leading instrumentalists of their generation – open, energetic, with a classical and jazzy feel.
Jazz and the classical American modernity emerged from European classical music, Afro- and Latin American, as well as Jewish traditions and US folk. In 1941/42, when the USA was just entering World War II, the 25-year-old Bernstein was on his way to his personal hybrid style with his clarinet sonata, in which the Broadway sound of “West Side Story” already appears.
Aaron Copland, who, like George Gershwin, shaped the American sound, responded in 1943 with his clarinet sonata to the death of a friend who was shot down in the Pacific: The first movement like a sunrise over great expanses; it lets you feel “the values at stake: peace, civilization, and freedom” (H. Pollack). Solemn remembrance in the second movement, in the final movement, momentum and lyrical eloquence that rise into silence. Warm blues scales, Latino Habanera echoes, a sparkling scherzo finale in Gershwin’s jazzy preludes from 1926.
In 1962, Poulenc wrote his clarinet sonata for Benny Goodman, who premiered it in Carnegie Hall in 1963, after Poulenc's death, with Bernstein. Lightly jazz-colored, it floats between irony and melancholy, graceful farewell and vulnerable openness. Lightness and sly Parisian esprit at the end. Paquito D’Rivera pays tribute to Benny Goodman on his 100th birthday in 2009. Coolly nostalgic, the Cuban-American clarinetist and saxophonist recalls bandoneon and tango in “The Cape Cod Files.” His “Chiquita Blues” is a playful, fast-paced fusion of blues, modern harmonics, and Caribbean rhythms.
From Broadway to Buenos Aires
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990): Clarinet Sonata (1941–42)
Aaron Copland (1900–1990): Clarinet Sonata
George Gershwin (1898–1937): Three Preludes, arr. for Clarinet and Piano
Francis Poulenc (1899–1963): Sonata for Clarinet
Paquito D’Rivera (*1948): The Cape Cod Files
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
