ProStudioMasters.com

Mosaicos is a cross-section of today’s musical creation in our country. The Musicalis Trio is contributing to the ongoing configuration of our artistic history, helping generate a new and valuable repertoire for the instrumental combination of clarinet (especially the bass clarinet), violin and piano. On this map of Spanish stylistic diversity at the commencement of the 21st century we travel from the sonic exaltation of Parra to the timbral speculation of Sánchez-Verdú, passing on the way the luminosity of Torres, the eclecticism of Greco and the lyricism of Paús. The added value of the members of the Musicalis Trio starts with their rigorous and enthusiastic interpretation of this music, demonstrating their exceptional capacity of adaptation to each language. The Musicalis Trio was formed in 2008 within the ambit of the Spanish National Orchestra. During the past 15 years of shared work and intensive concert activity, its three members (Eduardo Raimundo, clarinet and bass clarinet; Mario Pérez, violin; Francisco Escoda, piano) have forged the group’s identity, whose fundamental purpose is “to re-create the chamber music of history’s great composers.” In fact, on their first CD, Contrasts, they imparted their personal vision of five key works for the atypical combination of clarinet, violin and piano, all of them written in the first decades of the 20th century: the suite from Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat (1919), the “Adagio” from Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto (1925), Khachaturian’s Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1932), Milhaud’s Suite for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1936) and Bartok’s Contrasts (1938). On this new album, Mosaic, the Musicalis Trio takes a step further and makes the triple commitment to that which is part of its foundational DNA: the augmenting of the repertoire for its formation, the music composed in our time, and the music of Spain. Throughout its trajectory the Musicalis Trio has commissioned and premiered close to thirty works by the most important Spanish composers of today, living in Spain or abroad, and in many cases these works are dedicated to the trio. Here we have a collection of five 21st century scores written expressly for the Musicalis Trio. Four of them, those by Hèctor Parra, José Luis Greco, Ramón Paús and José María Sánchez-Verdú, are written for bass clarinet, violin and piano, whereas the work for B♭ clarinet, violin and piano is signed by Jesús Torres. On the one hand, this is clearly a boon to the growth of the repertoire for an instrument as beguiling, versatile and still relatively unexploited as the bass clarinet. But the five creations, which take advantage of all the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the Musicalis Trio, also reveal the group’s desire to showcase an extended range of styles and aesthetic approaches. This is evident as well in the heterogeneous designs and illustrations that the multifaceted artist Ion Fernández de las Heras has made for each piece.