Serenade - Works for Clarinet and Strings by Krenek, Gál and Penderecki Kilian Herold, Barbara Buntrock, Florian Donderer, Tanja Tetzlaff

• Ernst Krenek (1900 - 1991): Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4:
• 1Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: I. Moderato07:37
• 2Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: II. Adagio ma non troppo03:48
• 3Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: III. Allegro molto02:02
• 4Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: IV. Langsamer02:07
• 5Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: V. Allegretto grazioso05:19
• 6Krenek: Serenade for Clarinet Quartet in B Major, Op. 4: VI. Allegro vivace01:25
• Hans Gál (1890 - 1987): Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Op. 93:
• 7Gál: Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Op. 93: I. Cantabile. Moderato07:46
• 8Gál: Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Op. 93: II. Burletta. Vivace ma non troppo04:01
• 9Gál: Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Op. 93: III. Intermezzo. Andantino02:52
• 10Gál: Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, Op. 93: IV. Giocoso. Allegro molto moderato05:33
• Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 - 2020): Clarinet Quartet:
• 11Penderecki: Clarinet Quartet: I. Notturno. Adagio03:34
• 12Penderecki: Clarinet Quartet: II. Scherzo. Vivacissimo02:33
• 13Penderecki: Clarinet Quartet: III. Serenade. Tempo di Valse01:27
• 14Penderecki: Clarinet Quartet: IV. Abschied. Larghetto07:47
• Total Runtime57:51

Info for Serenade - Works for Clarinet and Strings by Krenek, Gál and Penderecki

Clarinettist Kilian Herold performs works for clarinet and strings together with cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, violinist Florian Donderer and violist Barbara Buntrock. Their new album ‘Serenade’ is released today on our partner label CAvi music. It focuses on the three composers Ernst Krenek with his stylistic diverse Serenade Op. 4, Hans Gál and his Serenade in 19th century Viennese tradition, as well as Krzysztof Penderecki with his tranquil Clarinet Quintet.

SERENADE: The century was only twenty-one years old, and so was Ernst Krenek, when his Serenade op. 4 was premièred on 31 July 1921 at the newly launched “Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the advancement of contemporary music.” The event soon came to be known as Donaueschingen Festival, now one of the oldest specialized music festivals worldwide: Krenek’s music has occasionally been heard there since then – albeit as a series of utterly contrasting works one would hardly ascribe to the same composer.

Such variety comes from Krenek’s chameleon-like capacity of metamorphosis, of which he was well aware. He accepted that he came off “badly compared with the great masters of the past, whose work presents itself to us as a well-rounded, logically organized unit.” We can already sense something of Krenek’s bewildering stylistic diversity in his 1919 Serenade. At first sight, it seems to cling stubbornly to the style of Krenek’s teacher, Franz Schreker, and to Viennese Late Romanticism. It contains a whiff of Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade….

Hans Gál, under threat as a Jew in Germany and, from 1938, also in his native country of Austria, found refuge in the United Kingdom – although initially only as an intern in a camp, as he would vividly describe in his book “Musik behind Barbed Wire.” Hans Gál’s style remained rooted in the Vienna tradition of the “long” 19th century…..

Krzysztof Penderecki, on the other hand, was both a traditionalist and a trailblazer. In 1959, he entered the Polish Composer Society youth competition with three anonymous works that won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes, thus unmistakably proving his rank as one of his country’s outstanding musical talents…..Penderecki composed his Clarinet Quartet, which exists in a further version for string orchestra, entitled Sinfonietta No. 2. Here we are dealing with a tranquil, subdued work that almost ventures into Schubertian confines, featuring a tender nocturnal dialogue between the clarinet and the viola as the first movement’s point of departure.

Tanja Tetzlaff, cello
Barbara Buntrock, viola
Florian Donderer, violin
Kilian Herold, clarinet

Tanja Tetzlaff
For decades, Tanja Tetzlaff has been one of the most influential musicians of her generation, both as soloist and chamber musician. Her playing is characterized by a uniquely fine yet powerful and nuanced sound, which always goes hand in hand with cultivated musicality. Tanja Tetzlaff’s trademark is her extraordinarily broad repertoire and her desire for new, groundbreaking concert formats.

In April 2021, Tanja Tetzlaff became the first scholarship holder to be awarded the highly endowed Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship of the city of Weimar. She now has the opportunity to realize a two-year film project relating Bach’s famous cello suites to nature and climate change issues: Suites4Nature / Suites for a Wounded World.

Tanja Tetzlaff is a founding member of the Tetzlaff Quartet (Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Kufferath, and Hanna Weinmeister). She plays a cello by Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini from 1776.

Barbara Buntrock
took her first violin lessons at the age of five; it was only just before entering university-level studies that she discovered her love for the viola, its deeper tones and timbres.

She studied at several music universities: in Cologne with Werner Dickel, in Lübeck with Barbara Westphal, at the Juilliard School in New York City with Heidi Castleman, and in Berlin with Tabea Zimmermann and Lars Anders Tomter.

From February 2009 to December 2010, Barbara Buntrock was Principal Violist of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra but decided to devote herself instead to solo appearances and chamber music.

In 2015, she was appointed Viola Professor at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf.

Buntrock plays a viola made by Antonio Mariani in Pesaro, ca. 1650, an instrument that previously belonged to legendary violist Lionel Tertis.

Her most recent recordings on CD include Walter Braunfels’s Scottish Fantasia (on the Capriccio label) and the viola concertos of Christian Westerhoff (cpo). In contrast to her musical activities, her two children have been the leading voice in Barbara Buntrock‘s life since 2021.

Florian Donderer
As a chamber musician, soloist, conductor and concertmaster – equally at home on the violin and viola – he is a highly esteemed partner of many renowned musicians and a welcome guest at prestigious chamber music series and festivals. Since 2019, he has been the director of the Rottweil Music Festival Sommersprossen; together with his wife, Tanja Tetzlaff, he curates the chamber music series residenz@sendesaal at Sendesaal Bremen. With the Signum Quartet as its leader, he has travelled to international venues throughout Europe and even to New York‘s Carnegie Hall.

As concertmaster and artistic director, he is a guest performer with various European chamber orchestras and a lecturer in violin, chamber music and orchestral playing at numerous universities. He plays a violin made by German violin maker Peter Greiner in 2003, as well as bows by Nico Plog from Antwerp.

Kilian Herold
Widely known as a multifaceted chamber musician, a renowned clarinet soloist, and a high-profile orchestra musician, Kilian Herold is one of the most interesting and versatile clarinetists of his generation.

After having held the post of Principal Clarinet at the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, he was appointed Clarinet Professor at Freiburg University of Music in 2016. Herold is frequently invited to guest with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and can be regularly seen and heard at a number of international chamber music and contemporary music festivals.

Booklet for Serenade - Works for Clarinet and Strings by Krenek, Gál and Penderecki