McCabe, Rabaud, Romero, Weber, Widor, Yuste

Virtuoso Clarinet solos - Click for Track List

Maximiliano Martin (clarinet) & Scott Mitchell (piano)

Linn Records CKD 331

"- - one of the most exciting and charismatic musicians of his generation - -", so we are assured in one of those two page CVs in CD booklets which surely no one reads? [q.v. ]

A fluent clarinettist, and member of Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this disc plays far too safe with a selection of conservatoire test pieces etc, displaying little individuality amongst the composers represented.

Edited and recorded to demonstrate flawless virtuoso playing, with never an ugly sound, this is easy listening but not such as to prevent attention wandering.

Weber's Grand Duo Concertante is a well-ridden war horse, and of the others the twenty-five year old John McCabe's 3 pieces (he'd completed 13 symphonies by age 11) are the most interesting, though the central Improvisation seems insufficiently worked out at 93 seconds.

Peter Grahame Woolf

Hear Maximiliano Martin in Messiaen [Editor]