Sharon Kam makes a success of Krommer’s E flat Concerto, a striking piece that deserves more performances. She does very well with the Adagio, which if musically not of great substance has an attractively dark hue and sets the performer some problems of phrasing as well as of style; this is intelligently and sensitively handled, and she comes into her own with the bright finale, where her cheerful approach well matches the music’s amiability and her slightly tough tone quality is not at all inappropriate to its hearty good humour.
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is another matter. Kam is lively with the finale, though there is a more touching quality in the melodic material, let alone some of the things that Mozart does with it, than she seems willing to allow. This also shows in the opening movement, where the greatest performers respond to the passages where the music is darkened with unexpected harmonic and tonal procedures that give it such a haunted and haunting quality. Kam sails through unconcerned, and her tone remains rather hard for the music, her sense of its shifting mood not quick enough to reflect its full emotional range. In the Adagio, she phrases simply and delivers the music clearly, but there is more to it than that, as is demonstrated by de Peyer, Brymer and Leister, to name but three. I was interested to learn from the insert-note that the concerto has been “one of classical music’s greatest hits” ever since this movement was used as mood music in a film. And I’d always thought it was long acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the whole history of music. Does a respectable company like Teldec really think this kind of populist drivel does anyone any good, even their sales manager? This record may not be a first choice for the work, but the performance deserves better than that.'