Esther Lamneck is an extraordinary clarinetist, with exacting control and warm, wonderful tone, from chalumeau to the highest register. She negotiates large skips, microtones, and multiphonics with the same casual ease, so that none of the difficulties (and there are many) of this music ever seem to affect the expressive intent of her playing. The recorded sound captures all of this well, with the exception of a too-distant piano part in the Kraft work.

    Ruth Schonthal's Bells of Sarajevo, for clarinet and piano, is meant to evoke the polarity of that city's beauty and of its tragic history in this century. The music is evocative in two ways. The gestures of Balkan folk song, including its microtones and modes, make up much of the melodic material of the first part, which unfolds in recitative sections. These are interrupted by violent chordal outbursts in the piano, colored by in-strings preparation, which refer to the Sarajevo that was recently a war zone. A Yugoslav lullaby provides the material for most of the second half of the piece. The juxtaposition of these simple, contrasting elements could all too easily cross into the realm of the hyperemotional, but Schonthal avoids this trap. The piece is powerfully expressive.

    Ron Mazurek's Satori opens with a metrically free exchange between tape and clarinet, both with chromatic lines of quick staccato notes. A clarinet cadenza, improvised, joins the first half of the piece with the second, which uses more sustained notes in both parts.

    Sound Etchings by Dinu Ghezzo is for clarinet and piano reverberations -- the clarinetist plays into a piano with the sustain pedal secured in the down position. The six-movement piece (allotted on track on the disc) explores a wide melodic range and a number of extended techniques, including multiphonics, microtones, and singing through the instrument. The language is atonal and covers a variety of moods to great effect.

    Lamneck plays a duet with her taped self in Eun-Bae Kim's lovely Sounds of Pusan for clarinet, recorded clarinet, and tape. Both clarinet parts are melodically based, largely modal, microtonally inflected lines in imitation or close harmony with some flutter-tongue coloration. The subtle tape part uses sustained bass notes for a projection of depth.

    Marc Antonio Consoli's Sciuri Novi III was written to be played by either two live clarinets or a taped second clarinet with live first clarinet. This version has the second part on tape. Far busier than the similar setup in Sound of Pusan, both parts contain fast chromatic runs and atonal melody (with a jazzlike feel in places), sometimes imitating one another or in counterpoint. The interlocking lines of the tow parts result in gorgeous textures and interesting crossing patterns.

    Barbara Jazwinski's Visions (1990) for clarinet solo avoids the extensions of timbre and scale found in much of the newest clarinet literature (including that on this disc) while still sounding very modern. Long arpeggios and melodic lines traverse the instrument's entire range, hinting at motivic relationships that are never explicitly stated. This piece shows of Lamneck's "traditional" playing in its full glory.

    No Time Like This Time by Leo Kraft (born 1922) is a good-natured ragtime, full of remembrances of Paul Whiteman or Gershwin but also of Stravinsky. A bluesy central section bisects the more upbeat material. Although enjoyable, the piece seems out of place in this otherwise very modern and serious context.

    The Kraft sticks out, but it's cute and could be heard as a kind of encore sorbet. Hurray for Esther Lamneck, whose talent and skill were midwife to all but the Jazwinski piece (she nonetheless plays the piece like she owns it). This is a well-done mix of new clarinet repertoire.