Seunghee Lee: Intermezzo: Works of Michele Mangani
Musica Solis
Michele Mangani's music resonated so strongly when Seunghee Lee heard it for the first time in 2012, it literally brought the clarinetist out of a self-imposed retirement. Feeling discouraged and uninspired, she'd quit music and re-directed her energies into other parts of her life. To that end, the title of her fifty-minute release isn't just the name of one of the Mangani pieces she performs but also a reference to the very idea of pausing and taking stock; after all, an opera intermezzo functions as a point of transition within the larger narrative, and for Lee too the time when she stepped back to reflect on her life and future was pivotal in bringing clarity.
It wasn't Intermezzo, however, that was the epiphany but instead the album's opening piece Executive, as fine an example of the Italian composer's bel canto style as any on the set. Mangani's works also abound in melody, be they rhapsodic, soulful, melancholy, or joyful, and as such have natural and immediate appeal to a soloist like Lee. The impact of his music is bolstered considerably by those with whom she partners, the Manhattan Chamber Players on the first half and the renowned pianist Steven Beck the second. Of the eleven Mangani works presented, all but one are world premiere recordings, and the programme's completed by the composer's arrangement of Astor Piazzolla's Tango Étude No. 3, originally written for flute but here recast for clarinet and chamber ensemble.
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Yale School of Music, Lee has performed throughout the world and amassed numerous awards (she's also, interestingly, a highly skilled golfer who's known as “Sunny Kang” in the golf world). Issued on her own Musica Solis label, Intermezzo is as perfect match between composer and performer as might be found. With its strings gently prodding the material and the clarinet swooping and singing joyously, Executive is tonally reminiscent of Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 (famously included in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut), and this first presentation of Lee's instrument and the chamber ensemble's strings is enrapturing, to say the least. As engaging as the spirited framing sections is the gentle episode at its centre, which is delivered with great poignancy. The clarinet is a superb conduit for expressions of sorrow and joy, and both are accounted for repeatedly in the beautiful material Lee selected for the recording.
Intermezzo, Ave Maria, and Theme for Clarinet exude tenderness and dignity in the heartfelt treatments they receive, while Love Theme, not surprisingly for a piece so titled, is even perhaps lovelier. Dancing Doll, on the other hand, isn't the rousing dynamo one might expect but instead a wistful lament of intense feeling. On the uptempo side, the Piazzolla tango stabs with all the forcefulness one would anticipate, while Tre Danze Latine, performed gracefully by Lee and Beck, beguiles with infectious rhythms and crisp, breezy flow in all three parts. The decision to collaborate with the string ensemble for half and Beck the other was smart too, not just for adding contrast to the arrangements but for giving the performances an extra level of intimacy in the duet arrangements (by way of illustration, see Theme for Clarinet).
There are multiple pleasures to be had from Intermezzo, the writing for one and the inspired performances by Lee and her partners for another. That her love for playing was reinvigorated by Mangani's music is shown clearly in her spirited rendering of the “Chorinho” from Tre Danze Latine. As one agile display follows another, we not only hear the joy in her virtuosic performance but are reminded of how fortunate we are that her encounter with Mangani inspired her return. A musician of her calibre should be heard, and Intermezzo provides a spectacular forum for the clarinetist.November 2024