Choreography For Clarinet

Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst joins the Australian Chamber Orchestra in May, performing works by Hillborg, Brahms and Copland. Simon Moore chats with him about his lively approach to music.

Music can paint pictures and tell stories. When listening to a recording we can close our eyes and dream of the exotic. And when we attend a concert we can be held in thrall by the performers presenting the music to us in ways that a simple recording cannot quite match. By an intensity of the brow, by rhythmic movement or a momentary stillness, these artists of sound communicate an unwritten complexity that transcends the notes on a page.

In a work composed specially for him, the soloist joining the Australian Chamber Orchestra in May adds a new level that goes beyond a simple performance. Clarinettist Martin Fröst is one of the most exciting wind players currently on the international scene, and he leaves his audience awestruck as he adds magic to this intense piece with his exuberant playing and nimble body movements.

The work in question is the clarinet concerto, titled Peacock Tales, by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. ‘The piece was written more than 10 years ago actually,’ Martin tells me. There is a choreographic element to the music, which involves the performer strutting about the stage in the manner of a stylised peacock. I quickly visit YouTube to see an example, and Martin is not misleading me in his description of the work. He does far more than stroll around the stage – rather he performs a series of precise and dramatic moves, including holding the clarinet in some rather unclarinet-like positions!

‘I had done some pieces like that before, written in the 70s by Stockhausen and Boulez,’ he says. ‘They had wanted to write pieces that were more than just music. I did some of them and that went okay.’

But these shorter works left Martin eager for a larger challenge. ‘I had an idea that I should take it to a bigger thing like a concerto, and the composer Anders Hillborg really liked the concept. We were both very enthusiastic. It’s for a big orchestra, and it is over half an hour long.’ Hillborg has subsequently reworked the concerto for string orchestra. ‘Of course, the string orchestra version (which we will be playing) is quite different from the big version, but it still includes the choreography,’ Martin says.

Viewing the online videos of Martin performing the Peacock Tales concerto, I couldn’t help feeling he had a genuine rapport with his chosen instrument. This drew me to enquire about his first encounter with the clarinet.

‘I started playing the violin first, when I was five,’ he says. ‘I came across the clarinet when I was about eight. It was actually a recording of Mozart’s clarinet concerto, recorded by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and I fell in the love with it. I think that was the start – the Mozart concerto was very central to my life with the clarinet at the beginning! I went out and bought the music, and after a while I managed to start to practise the slow movement, and then to play the [whole] concerto. I went on to play in a Dixie band, a bit of jazz, to start, and it just grew from there!’

With his unique performances, I was curious as to whether Martin saw it as his mission to deliberately push boundaries, or blur the edges between different art forms?

‘Classical music makes up about 80 per cent of my repertoire,’ he says, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘We should play the fantastic music that we already have, but we should also take a forward direction.’

Martin Fröst will be sharing some of that 80 per cent with us on his tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, of which the Hillborg Peacock Tales is just a part. It is the artist’s first trip to Australia, and will include some recording sessions with the ACO.

‘The whole idea about this tour is around the theme of dance, and that includes the recordings I will be doing with the ACO. We have the Hillborg which, while not being dance music, contains a dance in the solo part, and there are the Brahms Hungarian Dances. For the recordings, we’ll also be doing the Lutoslawski Dance Preludes, plus some tangos by Piazzolla.’

‘And it’s dance from all different angles,’ he says. ‘There is also some jazz influence with the Copland clarinet concerto, which we are doing for the concerts.’

Martin Fröst shares with me some recent experiences performing this work. ‘I played the Copland just before Christmas in Carnegie Hall. That was the first time actually I had played it in a big hall. It was a great experience.’

As it turned out, this experience almost enmeshed him with a very real piece of history connected with the work’s earliest performances.

‘The piece was originally written for Benny Goodman. They had a Benny Goodman exhibition at Carnegie Hall which contained his own instrument. They actually wanted me to play the piece on his clarinet, and to make a recording with it! It’s a very good instrument, but it simply wasn’t going to happen because of the insurance problems involved!’

And certainly, my conversation with Martin Fröst leads me to believe that any piece he chooses to play for us is bound to work very well, whether it involves additional choreography or not!

ACO TOUR 3 – GLITTERING FRÖST
Sunday 22 May 2pm
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
Tuesday 24 May 8pm, Wednesday 25, Saturday 28 May 7pm
City Recital Hall Angel Place
Tickets: $38–$99
Bookings: 1800 444 444
www.aco.com.au