ARTHUR CAMPBELL Music for Clarinet & Piano Audite CD

Music for Clarinet & Piano

Arthur Campbell, Clarinet

Helen Marlais, Piano

Audite CD 97.536

made in Germany

new, factory sealed

Presenting works by German, French and British composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arthur Campbell and Helen Marlais (piano) exhibit the enormous dynamic and sonic spectrum of the clarinet. At the heart of this recording are the late works of the three French composers Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Francis Poulenc, who demonstrate equally the gentle and velvety character of the clarinet and the powerful, sometimes penetrating sound of the instrument. The increasing virtuosity which composers demanded from the clarinet during the course of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries is impressively demonstrated in the final movements of the works on this disc by Robert Schumann, Francis Poulenc and Malcolm Arnold. Arthur Campbell was born in Canada and studied at the Northwestern University in Michigan, USA, where he was taught by the renowned clarinettist and pedagogue Robert Marcellus. He has won numerous international and national competitions, including the International Clarinet Competition and the National Music Festival of Canada. An internationally sought-after clarinet virtuoso, Arthur Campbell has toured throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Asia. He regularly presents international masterclasses at universities, conservatoires and conventions. Arthur Campbell was appointed professor at the Grand Valley State University in Michigan, where he has been teaching a class of clarinet students from across the globe.

Fono Forum, May 2012

"For duo-sonatas with a piano and a ‘soloist’ instrument, the question always arises of how much the ‘solo’ instrument holds back, adapts to the piano, how much it enables the coexistence of two equal partners. Far too often, piano is equated with ‘accompaniment’ while violin, cello, or a wind instrument vigorously trumps. Without even thinking that two belong in this sonata. In this regard, on this CD the Canadian clarinetist Arthur Campbell plays various works for clarinet and piano so exemplarily as one seldom hears. He holds back in tone and gesture so much, that many listeners whose focus lies primarily on the clarinet could be disappointed at this reserve. On the other hand, whoever follows the togetherness of piano and wind instrument will be inspired. Campbell virtually fuses with the tone of the piano (Helen Marlais), which results in an interpretation of impressive inclusiveness. Seldom has one so clearly observed the bubbling substructure of the piano part of Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces op. 73 and, thereby, seldom have the Schumann pieces been played so elegantly and delicately. And seldom has the clarinet part in Debussy’s Premier Rhapsody been seamlessly joined with the impressionistic piano tones. Campbell’s and Marlais’ playing is always exact, elegant, without excess. The beauty of this genuinely joint playing is so captivating that it seems to lack for nothing. Not even romantic emotional eruptions outbursts."