Disclaimer: This post may be a little bias; I have had a platonic infatuation with Sabine Meyer and her clarinet playing for as long as I can remember.
With that said, this past weekend, Sabine Meyer (German clarinetist), and her trio di clarone (comprised of her husband and her brother), filled Rackham Auditorium with the sounds of their clarinets.
The stage was filled with an aura of talent and elegance as Ms. Meyer opened the concert with Three Arias from the Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The performance captured the essence of the bel-canto– the idea of using a musical instrument as an extension of the voice. It was as if there was a soprano sitting on stage belting out some beautiful singing.
A lot of the trio pieces performed, including the Four Arias from Cossi fan Tutte, featured the basset horn, a rare instrument in the clarinet family. As a musician, it was great to be exposed to this “rarity” of sorts.
All the Clarinet Performance students in the audience– myself included– encountered a moment of mere shock and admiration when Sabine took on Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Unaccompanied Clarinet. Mind blowing. The already demanding piece at the tempo marked was kicked up a few notches. Simply breathtaking.
