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Music composed by a performer-composer is idiomatic by default: the marriage of technique and content takes place without the often unrequested but indispensable help of the match-makers, virtuosos and conductors. The time has come for me too to tell my own story, to unify the two media I feel and know so well and the most intimately, in the spiritual and the physical sense: my two instruments, the orchestra and the clarinet. Anyone who conducts sooner or later learns which "key" of the symphony orchestra has to be pressed, and how firmly, for this instrument to produce a fine, balanced sound. Anyone who plays music on the orchestra knows that, just like the clarinet, made of wood and metal, this instrument too has a soul, albeit much more complex. Over the last couple of years I have begun to feel that the time has come to compose everything I know about the soul of the clarinet, in a way that only I can do right here and right now. Since it's more a case of feeling or hearing it within, it's difficult to write about just why the clarinet is the perfect instrument for bringing to life the character of Lewis Carroll's famous Alice, or Salvador Dalí's melting clocks, without words. (Gergely Vajda, composer) Gergely Vajda is an internationally renowned musician, musical director of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra (Alabama, USA) (2011-), artistic director of the International Armel Opera Competition and Festival (2014-), and musical director of the Portland Festival Symphony (2017-). For three years he was at the helm of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra as principal conductor, from 2014 he was appointed permanent guest conductor. He is a sought-after conductor and composer world-wide, and a permanent guest professor at the masterclasses of the Péter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation. He is the conductor of several world premiere recordings, his works have been released by Hungaroton Classic and BMC Records.

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Clarinet Symphony shows Vajda's intimate knowledge of the instrument. Szepesi, principal clarinetist of the HRSO since 1983, and Varga, principal clarinetist of the HRSO since 1997, also leave a very personal mark with their blended and rich playing - a highlight of the album. Vajda describes the form of the work as a four-movement symphonic form with a prelude, interlude and postlude. This is his self-described attempt to combine his two artistic mediums of orchestra and clarinet into a mammoth piece. The Prelude opens with a groaning, low flurry of notes akin to a more laid-back Corigliano Concerto opening or the beginning of Elliott Carter's Clarinet Quintet. Szepesi and Varga carefully control languid pitch bends in the Ballade. Vajda's composition combines the colors of the orchestra with the clarinet timbre, with movements like the Scherzo mixing chalumeau clarinet with low winds as well as clarion register with high strings, percussion and harp. Vajda's rhythmic and harmonic language is soupy, dissonant and primordial. In the Finale, aggressiveness contrasts the solemn Adagio in a captivating journey. Clarinet Symphony lets the listener wade through its own enormous stature.

     —Ford Fourqurean, The Clarinet (USA)