MUSICWEB:
This is a feast for those addicted to the liquid legato of the clarinet. Or, as they used to say in the days of moustachioed heroes of the instrument, clarionet or clarinette. The hero here is Cristo Barrios and his accomplished partner is Clinton Cormany. Together they put forward a largely delightful collection. It ranges, seemingly ambling, from Vaughan Williams to Caccini to Duparc, thence to Schumann and then back to Ravel, before we suddenly encounter Cole Porter, Strauss and end with Obradors. The programme ranges from the nineteenth to the early-ish twentieth centuries though with the Caccini – programmed between VW and Sibelius (eh?) – as a sop to Aria antiche. In fact programming is quixotic to say the least and I rather got the impression that this recital could have followed in any order whatsoever. Still, that’s the prerogative of the performers I suppose – or Divine Art.

The disc’s sub-title is A recital of art-song in transcription. These arrangements are faithful to the original songs but we should in all candour fight to resist the temptation to judge the transcriptions too closely. It’s the nature of the transcriptive beast that the clarinet will tend to smooth out the more peppery moments in these songs. Thus that Caccini becomes just slightly too withdrawn and mellow. And the de Falla invariably loses something of its tang and taste – there’s not quite enough bite. Which is not to complain of the performances, which are very sensitive indeed, more to make the obvious point that the clarinet is sometimes an imperfect medium for this kind of thing.

The Ravel, perhaps surprisingly, comes off quite well but the Debussy, however attractively played, lacks a certain intimacy. The Barrios-Cormany duo relishes the teasing opening flourish of the Porter; then Cormany turns on the vamp and ragtime and Barrios broadens his tone. They find the romantic chanson of Poulenc’s Les chemins de l'amour very much to their liking and deal sensitively with Fauré’s Les berceaux, which in transcription is often simply played too loudly. Not here. The Obradors ends the recital with a ruffle of Franco-Spanishry.

Given that the programme is predicated on song it’s sensible of Divine Art to give us the texts – the originals and English translations where necessary.
Jonathan Woolf

INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW:
There’s not a lot to say about this release. You’ll either like it or you won’t, and I doubt if I can persuade you, one way or the other. Here are 21 songs, by 21 different composers, from Brahms to Wolf. Pretty much (I think you’d have to admit, though the final Obradors “song” was new to me) standard singers; repertoire; you could probably guarantee to hear at least half of them over a single month at, say, the Wigmore Hall; and the other half, a month later. Not, however, in this form, where the vocal line is played on the clarinet, with I think only the mildest of arrangement where essential.

Every possibility of individual verbal nuance and inflexion is thus neutralised, to be replaced with a generalised beauty of sound. I am not necessarily an enthusiast for over-inflected performance of Lieder, but this anthology is almost enough to make me recant. Given that the idiom is mostly though not entirely nineteenth century, there is of course lots of lovely, even cosy, deliquescent melody around. There’s not much drama though. Nor can I discern any real logic to the sequence of the pieces as they appear on the disc; alphabetical would have done just as well, if all pretence of planning is to be abandoned.

Cristo Barrios (how many other Canarian clarinettists can you name?) makes a nice individual sound, reedier than some, and has great breath-control; and I am sure he has absorbed all the texts, which are generously printed in full in the booklet. There is no shortage of beautiful moments, and even surprises; how well, for example, Vaughan Williams’s ‘The Roadside Fire’ from Songs of Travel survives its unexpected translation! The pianist Clinton Cormany neatly executes all that is required of him, though the piano sound is rather shallow, and also argues literately in the notes on behalf of these transcriptions. However, this is no substitute for the real thing, is it? Wouldn’t you want to have these words alongside Obradors’s nice tune, to see just how they combine?

Tiny is the bride
Tiny is the groom
Tiny is the living room
Tiny is the bedroom
That is why I want a tiny bed
With a mosquito net
Piers Burton-Page

AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE:
Spanish clarinettist Cristo Barrios and American pianist Clinton Cormany team up for a series of song transcriptions spanning from baroque to Broadway. The liner notes go a long way toward explaining their project, even delving into the precedents in the art of arranging, and they include the words to all their selections. The history lesson is rather unnecessary; good music justifies itself.

n this vein, the transcriptions are well done, and Cormany's playing mirrors his vast experience as a vocal accompanist. Barrios, a former student of Richard Stolzman, bears much of his teacher's passionate musicianship, but there are timbral problems. His sound is a bit vague, and he has his greatest difficulties at full volume, where the sound tends to spread and the pitch tends to sink. Furthermore, over the course of the program, one cannot help but fell that the playing is more instrumental than vocal, which it shouldn't be in this kind of endeavour.
Hanudel

[nb for a totally different view of the Barrios sound see the previous review!!!!]