Book and Music Reviews: September 2021
Carl Topilow. Arrangements for clarinet with orchestra: works by Dvořák, Kókai, Kovács (Weber), and Kreisler, and a klezmer medley (see individual entries below).
Conductor, clarinetist and arranger Carl Topilow was director of the orchestral program at the Cleveland Institute of Music for 37 years. He is the founder and conductor of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra – often performing as soloist on his red clarinet – and has conducted more than 120 orchestras around the world including many years as director with the National Repertory Orchestra. Growing up in metropolitan New York, Topilow began playing clarinet when he was nine. In high school he studied with Joseph Allard (NBC Symphony Orchestra). At the Manhattan School of Music he continued with Leon Russianoff and Herbert Blayman (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra). In his 20s, Topilow developed his musician-entertainer persona – so effective for a pops conductor – with countless clarinet performances at weddings and bar mitzvahs. All these experiences come together in Topilow’s arrangements for clarinet soloist with orchestra. The first of which, Dvořák’s Rondo, has a New York City connection.
Antonín Dvořák. Rondo arranged by Carl Topilow for clarinet (BÌ) and string orchestra (or string quartet). 7 minutes. Contact Carl Topilow: carl@topilow.com $100.00. Clarinet part alone: $25.00.
In December 1891 Dvořák agreed to be the next artistic director and professor of composition at New York’s National Conservatory of Music starting in October 1892. With some months remaining before his commitment began he realized he would greatly miss his Slovakian village, Vysoká. To smooth the transition and to say goodbye to friends, he embarked on a 40-plus concert tour of Bohemia from January to May 1892. One of the pieces he composed for this tour was the Rondo in G minor for cello and piano. Topilow has retained the original key, moved the solo line an octave higher and rewritten a gesture played across the strings on the cello to be idiomatic for the clarinet. Topilow’s string accompaniment assigns the oboe and bassoon lines from Dvořák’s orchestration among the strings. The clarinet part can be played with the original piano score.
Rezső Kókai. Four Hungarian Dances arranged by Carl Topilow for clarinet (BÌ) and orchestra (*2222/3000 T, harp, strings). 15 minutes. Permission for use from Universal Music Publishing Group www.umusicpub.com/us/license-request. Contact Carl Topilow (carl@topilow.com) for details.
Budapest composer, pianist and teacher Rezső Kókai (1906-1962) had his Symphony in EÌ premiered when he was 11 – an auspicious start to a career that would foment establishment of a Hungarian repertoire based on traditional dances. This is exactly the style of his popular clarinet recital work Four Hungarian Dances, which Topilow has so effectively recast with orchestral accompaniment. Topilow knows the orchestra inside and out and his accompaniment enhances the many moods of the music with colorful use of solo woodwinds, horns and in the slow “Mourning Dance,” harp and contrabass. Kókai’s piano score is the blueprint for the orchestration, and Topilow has completed the task with textures that never allow the orchestra to cover the solo clarinet (which plays the standard Editio Musica Budapest clarinet part). If you like this piece, check Kókai’s selected works list at Grove Music Online for additional solo and chamber pieces to track down.
Béla Kovács. Homage to Carl Maria von Weber arranged and with introduction and transitions by Carl Topilow for clarinet (BÌ) and orchestra (2202/2200 T, strings). Also available for clarinet with piano. 9 minutes. Contact Carl Topilow (carl@topilow.com) for assistance with rental through Edition Darok www.editiondarok.de.
The works of Professor Béla Kovács have been bringing joy to clarinetists for nearly 30 years – primarily through his solo clarinet Hommages to nine historically prominent composers. Carl Topilow builds on this wave of enthusiasm with accompanied versions of the Hommage à C. M. von Weber. Both Topilow versions, with piano or orchestra, retain Kovács’s original clarinet part and then add to it a stylistically appropriate accompaniment including newly composed introduction, and short transitions between the variations. The result is an amalgam of Weber’s concerted works for clarinet, his Variations on a Theme from the Opera “Silvana” for clarinet and piano, Kovács’ musically pedagogical Hommage and Topilow’s advocacy of the whole brought to the concert hall. Highly recommended.
Fritz Kreisler. Praeludium and Allegro arranged by Carl Topilow for clarinet (BÌ) and piano or clarinet, piano, drum set, double bass and string orchestra. 6 minutes (depending on number of jazz choruses). Contact Carl Topilow: carl@topilow.com $100.00 for purchase.
The jazz standard Autumn Leaves is interspersed within Praeludium and Allegro. Both works contain a similar harmonic pattern. Arrangement includes open jazz choruses. Originally for violin and piano; adapted from Gustave Langenus’s arrangement for clarinet and piano.
Traditional. A Klezmer Tribute for Clarinet and Orchestra (*2222/4331/T+1, strings) arranged by Carl Topilow. 6 minutes. Contact Carl Topilow: carl@topilow.com $150.00 for purchase.
The famous Heyser Bulgar, the stately hora Firn di Mekhutonim Aheym (Escorting the Parents of the Bride and Groom Home) and a bulgar reprise comprise this upbeat clarinet feature.