Close Up Concert – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
This concert in the intimate surroundings of the fantastic Music Room at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall features the outstanding UK clarinettist Julian Bliss accompanied by the excellent pianist James Baillieu.
The concert included five superb pieces of music written for clarinet and piano.
Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano (1962) is a short, energetic, and quite dazzling piece. In three movements, Poulenc’s sonata simply soars and brings a whole new meaning to the word melodic – the second slow movement is absolutely beautiful, and Bliss really shows us why he is one of the UK’s first and foremost exponents of the clarinet.
Claude Debussy’s Premiere Rapsodie (First Rhapsody) (1910) is a sublime and exhilarating piece of music and alth...