Chamber Music Prom 1 (2.08.21) - Zemlinsky & Brahms

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

13:00 & 18:00 Monday 2 August 2021
Cadogan Hall

Alexander von Zemlinsky: Clarinet Trio in D minor, Op. 3
Johannes Brahms: Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello in A minor, Op. 114

Michael Collins (clarinet)
Adrian Brendel (cello)
Michael McHale (piano)

Celebrated British clarinettist Michael Collins is joined by cellist Adrian Brendel and pianist Michael McHale to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. Charged with fin-de-siècle intensity and taut musical drama, the young Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio was much influenced by Brahms, at whose recommendation it was published. A contemporary said of Brahms’s own Trio in A minor that ‘it is as though the instruments are in love with each other’. With its graceful waltz of an intermezzo and dashing finale with hints of Gypsy swagger, it’s a musical love affair played out in glorious technicolour.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The numbering of RAH Proms and Cadogan Hall Chamber Music Proms are unofficial and are limited to this forum. I admit it - I made them up.

[bluestateprommer]

Very fine start to the Cadogan Hall series of chamber music Proms, no surprise with these 3 musicians doing the honors. The performance of the Zemlinsky op. 3 now brings the total # of Zemlinsky works featured at The Proms to 5. A clarinetist friend told me that the Zemlinsky was more enjoyable to listen to than to play, at least to the friend. That aside, for clarinet fans (and chamber music fans), well worth a listen, as the Cadogan Hall PCM's tend to get lost in the shuffle of summer Proms discussions, IMHO.

BTW, on the numbering question that EA mentioned:
1. I'm with EA, albeit in my own style, on numbering the PCM's.
2. The Royal Albert Hall, however, has taken to numbering the RAH Proms. So it's not quite exclusive to the Forum ;) .