A clarinet concert at Corfu Reading Society

  Few days before, I've been to an interesting concert in which two clarinetists performed accompanied by a pianist. The clarinetists performed were Guy Dangain, a famous french clarinetist with an important carrier in various music institutions in France and Angelos Politis, a corfiot clarinetist. The concert was dedicated to H.E. Klosé, a 19th century clarinetist who invented the Boehm system, the standard clarinet keywork used in most of the countries in the world (the other is the Müller system used only in the german speaking countries).

  Most people don't know that Hyacinthe Eléonore Klosé was born in Corfu in 1808. He was son of a french military official (Corfu in the beginning of the 19th century was under french occupation) who lived there for some years serving in the local french military force. We don´t know who was Klosé's mother but some say that it may have been a corfiot woman as most young french officials were unmarried. When he was a teenager, Κlosé went to the Paris to study music. In 1831 he was admitted in the National Conservatory of Paris in which he attended the classes of the great clarinetist Frederic Berr. Soon he became himself a virtuoso and in 1838 he became a professor replacing his teacher. He wrote the famous method, known as the Bible of the clarinet and he had many famous soloists (like Holms, Frederic Selmer and Turban) as students. He died in Paris in 1880.

  Below there are two videos from this interesting concert at the Corfu Reading Society.

- Guy Dangain performing " After you mr. Gershwin" by Βelá Kovács



- Guy Dangain and Angelos Politis performing Amilcare Ponchielli's "Il Convegno"