Gershwin: Music for Clarinet and Strings (CD review)

Porgy and Bess Suite; Piano Concerto in F major (excerpt); An American in Paris (excerpt); 3 Preludes.  Arranged by Franck Villard.  Michel Lethiec, Clarinet; Patrick Gallois, Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla.  Naxos 8.570939.

There's always something new in the classical-music field, you can depend on it, even when the "something new" is something old.  In this case, it's Gershwin's music transcribed for clarinet and string orchestra, the clarinet being an apt instrument for Gershwin's flowing, free-spirited, jazz-inflected musical world.

Franck Villard arranged these familiar songs and melodies, apparently quite recently although the booklet note doesn't say, and he does them no harm.  Of course, it helps to like the music of George Gershwin (1898-1937) and the sound of the clarinet to appreciate the album fully, yet even if you've never heard Gershwin before or haven't given the clarinet much thought, you might still like these arrangements.  The performances are lively and colorful, a little different, to be sure, and highly entertaining.

Things begin with a five-movement suite from the popular opera Porgy and Bess, and you'll find all the familiar songs here following the chronology of the story:  "Summertime," "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing," "My Man's Gone Now," "I Got Plenty of Nuttin'," "It Ain't Necessarily So," etc.  Villard does a welcome job making sure the clarinet replicates most of the vocal parts, and Michael Lethiec's clarinet playing is splendidly evocative.  The five movements combine to form a suite over forty-three minutes long, so you get your money's worth.

Of the accompany pieces, the Piano Concerto excerpt is my favorite, although the American in Paris excerpt is wonderfully expressive, too, and the three Preludes form a pleasant little mini-concerto.  OK, if I have any qualm at all, it's that there is a kind of sameness to hearing so much of this well-known music played exclusively by solo clarinet and strings.  The actual opera and the various full-orchestral treatments have a greater array of instrumentation, tone, inflection, and emphases working for them to bring more variety to the music making.  Still, taken in small doses, these clarinet transcriptions provide their own rewards.

As far as Naxos's sound goes, it's up to their usual standards:  good but not quite state-of-the-art.  The miking is somewhat close, with the clarinet clearly front and center, producing clean, crisp, dynamic, if not too dimensional results.  The audiophile might want more in the way of stage depth and transparency, but I suspect most other people will find the sound satisfying enough.

Incidentally, I'd like to mention that Naxos do a terrific job with their booklet notes.  They always seem to pack more information into a tinier space than anybody else, the booklet well organized and concise in both English and French.

JJP