This disc has a lot going for it. Jon Manasse is a superb clarinetist, with a perfectly even tone in all registers, a silky legato, and a timbre so pure it sometimes sounds as though it’s being electronically produced (not in a bad way). His tempos are invariably well chosen, his breath seemingly limitless, and he navigates his top register without a hint of shrillness. He’s really that good. Gerard Schwarz is seldom interesting, but also never bad. He accompanies well, and the orchestra sounds good. Finally, the coupling is a useful and intelligent (if not terribly generous) one. Louis (Ludwig) Spohr regarded himself as Mozart’s logical successor, Beethoven having had a defective aesthetic sense. Of course he was no such thing, but his four clarinet concertos number among his finest works in any form, perhaps because he was not tempted into the kind of cloying preciosity typical of so much of his violin music.
So what, then, is the problem? Simple. The sonics are some of the strangest and most ineptly judged since, well, Karajan in his personally mixed, hearing-impaired dotage. The clarinet is hugely forward, louder than the entire orchestra, and it seems to get louder the softer Manasse plays. As the volume increases, the sound-stage changes, like a camera pulling back for a wide-angle shot, but the dynamic range seems hardly to change. It’s just crazy, and doesn’t even come close to a sensible or realistic balance between solo and orchestra. It’s a shame, because Manasse is an artist well worth getting to know. Hopefully, if there is a next time, HM will ensure that he’s presented in a more naturally engineered context.
