For a concert whose selling point was the married status of the couple on the platform – acknowledged by the Cottier Chamber Project's Andy Saunders in his introduction – it was fitting that clarinettist Jean Johnson built a romantic structure around her recital with her pianist husband.
The link, of course, was Clara Schumann, wife of the troubled Robert, whose Three Romances of 1849 were bracketed by the two Opus 120 Sonatas of Brahms from 1894. Whatever the reality of Clara's relationship with Brahms after the death of her husband, there is little doubt that she is the muse behind the sonatas as much as she is clearly the inspiration for Schumann's altogether more cheery lyrical work.
This was a really (rarely) happy Schumann, the composer that Brahms so much admired, and the central piece one of his loveliest melodies. The unity of wind and keyboard lines in the third romance was wonderfully expressively played.
Among his very last works, Brahms wrote the clarinet sonatas for Richard Muhlfeld, a virtuoso generations of reed (and viola) players have had reason to thank for prompting Johannes to pick up his pen again, after declaring that his composing days were behind him.
Johnson and Osborne left the bigger and better Sonata No 1 for last. In it the piano has more of a role from the start and the arc of the four movements has more drama.
Although the little Pleyel piano occasionally overwhelmed Johnson's low register, what was always audible was the darker tone in much of the writing, an undercurrent of sadness from a man who had lost many friends in the year of the composition of these pieces – and would soon lose Clara too.
West End Festival
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