Search - Felix Mendelssohn (Composer), Alan Hacker (Clarinet), Lesley Schatzberger (Basset Horn) :: Felix Mendelssohn: Works for Clarinet, Basset Horn & Piano - Alan Hacker / Lesley Schatzberger / Richard Burnett

New Insights

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 07/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The tiny English record label Amon Ra specializes in recording historical instruments, very often from the collection at the museum in Finchcocks in Kent, where pianist Richard Burnett has built up a considerable collection of fully-playable keyboard instruments. On the current Mendelssohn CD, Burnett himself plays six of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, his Rondo Capriccioso Opus 14 and his 17 Variations Sérieuses Opus 54 on a Graf Fortepiano built in 1826 in Vienna and a British Broadwood Pianoforte built in 1823. The sound is amazing, the instruments sounding a lot more modern than I had anticipated from some other fortepiano recitals that I have heard, although of course there are all the usual thumping noises etc that one associates with historical instruments of this category. Burnett explains his choices of instrument in the short but informative notes provided.



Mendelssohn's youthful E flat Sonata for Clarinet and Fortepiano is performed beautifully by Alan Hacker using a Bilton boxwood clarinet from the first part of the 19th century and Burnett on the Graf fortepiano. The two relatively short Konzertstücke for clarinet, basset horn and fortepiano are performed on different instruments: On the first, Alan Hacker plays a late 19th century Albert cocus wood instrument, Lesley Schatzberger a small-bore basset horn by Selmer and Richard Burnett an Erard Pianoforte made in London in 1866. The second Konzertstück is played on slightly earlier instruments.



A wonderful "museum" recording with some lovely harmonies, some delightful piano playing and some living music outside the general run-of-the-mill pattern. New aspects of Mendelssohn, new insights into the history of instrument-making."