Jonathan Cohen: playing music from a time of turmoil

Clarinettist Jonathan Cohen

“…the audience should prepare themselves for passion and excitement.”

Jonathan Cohen, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s principal clarinettist, is preparing to play a concerto with the Orchestra this week. Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s virtuosic Clarinet Concerto would be a challenge anytime, but Cohen faces the extra hurdle of having just had the longest break from performance in his professional career. “The APO recording for the Christmas concert is the only thing I’ve done since August. I have to trust that walking out on stage will be like it always is.”

Nielsen wrote his Clarinet Concerto in 1928 for soloist Aage Oxenvad, a member of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Oxenvad was known for violent mood swings, and the Concerto reflects both his bipolar personality and the unsettled post-World War 1world.

“It was a time of turmoil in Europe,” says Cohen, “and Nielsen was looking back on his own memories, too. It’s a piece of extremes. There are loud, screaming moments, and then beautiful lyrical sections. The challenge for me is to balance those smooth long melodies and the flashy difficult bits. For this work the audience should prepare themselves for passion and excitement.”

Danish composer Carl Nielsen

“…looking back on his own memories.”

Some of the struggle in the Concerto is expressed by pitting the clarinet against the snare drum. “Nielsen was an amazing composer,” says Cohen “and recognized the ability of the clarinet to play long beautiful phrases. The snare drum is the complete opposite and here it’s a call to arms, reminding us of the battle.” 

New Orleans-born Cohen is a 3rd generation clarinetist whose first teacher was his father. “My grandfather,” he says, “was a jazz musician who went to Juilliard as a clarinetist on the G.I. Bill [which provides veteran and military tuition assistance].” Cohen followed his grandfather to the famous New York music school – a world leader in performing arts education - some 70 years later.

He feels fortunate to have been exposed early to so much good clarinet knowledge.  “I did some run-throughs of the Concerto with piano today,” he says, “and sent the recordings to my father – he’s still part of the process.”

With New Zealand at the “red” traffic light Omicron setting, the APO concert itself will not be normal. The plan is for an audience of no more than 100 people, plus a much bigger livestream audience and a later radio broadcast by RNZ Concert.

“Slavonic Dances” - music by Mozart, Nielsen and Dvořák.  Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Giordano Bellincampi (conductor) Jonathan Cohen (clarinet) February 24, Auckland Town Hall and livestream. Recorded by RNZ Concert for future broadcast.

This article was first published in the NZ Listener, issue 19 February, 2022