Album

Clarinet Concerto in A Major, KV 622
Rondo KV 373 (arr. Nicolai Pfeffer)
Hope near Lido KV 368 (arr. Andreas Tarkmann)
Symphony No. 29 in A Major KV 201

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Nicolai Pfeffer, clarinet
Orchestra della Toscana
Director Markus Stenz

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Elective affinities

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"With a supple, round and warm tone" (Das Orchester), the German clarinettist Nicolai Pfeffer, flanked on the piano by pianist Felix Wahl, recorded the two late sonatas op. 120 by Johannes Brahms three years ago and, in the words of Der Spiegel, revealed "an enormous emotional range" in this interpretation - musical orchestral virtues that the artist, born in 1985, may well have honed with teachers such as Bruce Edwards and Ralph Manno, but which he was clearly born with and which were awakened at an early age by a very special kind of encounter.

Nicolai Pfeffer reveals what this encounter was in his second CD, which also marks his discographic debut with orchestra: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's singular Concerto in A major K. 622 marked the moment of awakening in his early years, the moment of realisation - and when we hear him today in his handling of this work, there is no longer any doubt about the groundbreaking influence of the singular "late work".

The fact that we can hear it is thanks to a production that took place in August last year at the Teatro Verdi in Florence. There, in the midst of the inspiring field of tension between the Uffizi and the Duomo, Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio, Markus Stenz conducted the ORT Orchestra della Toscana in a Mozart programme primarily tailored to Nicolai Pfeffer's clarinet playing, which begins with the almost otherworldly beauty of the concerto, before turning to the irrepressibly enjoyable pages of earlier years, which this recording presents not in their original form, but in a very original way: The experienced arranger Nicolai Pfeffer has arranged the Rondo in C major K. 373 for violin and orchestra and blows the cadenza by the well-known arranger and composer Andreas N. Tarkmann, who is also responsible for the virtuoso concerto movement, which is based on the brilliant, extremely demanding concert aria "Sperai vicino il lido" K. 368.