FROM DOMESTIC PRESS

- selected articles

"The climax of the evening was the premiere of the brilliant composition by a Croatian composer Ivana Kiš, written for the basset clarinet & guitar - Rosa's Way Home, which the author wrote for the two of her coevals. It is a story about a woman who gets lost on her way home and is walking distractedly step by step trying to find the right path. From the initial tones which symbolize frightened pattering, the music associates with panic in progressive gradation, ending in a rittardando accompanied by maniac ostinato in crescendo. The impressive, only six minute piece was masterfully performed.

M.Paar & K.Bedek have reached highest level of chamber musicianship and revealed perfect harmony of their instruments supported by the beauty of tone, technical perfection and virtuosity. Contented audience rewarded the young artists with ovations and in return the encore was a popular Nana

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Višnja Požgaj

kulisa.eu

December 13th 2009

"With particular curiosity we have been awaiting the performance of the clarinettist Mihael Paar. Performing the Concertino for clarinet & strings by B.Bjelinski the musicians joint the composer's century birthday celebration. Clarinetist Mihael Paar has alongside with the chamber orchestra 'Franjo Krežma' showcased acoustic and dynamic diversity of themes and phrases with distinctive musicality and technical perfection. As a special encore in the Paar's style we were offered Chopin's Brilliant Etude op.10-2 in arrangement of the soloist himself.

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Branka Ban

biskupijadjs.hr

July 13th 2009

"Special guest star was the brilliant young clarinetist Mihael Paar who has recently been invited to the prestigious Summer Music Festival in Toronto. He reveals his delightedness to accept this invitation and to represent Croatia at the Festival. There he will also attend the master class with Karl leister, one of the most important clarinetists of our time."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Tomislav Levak

The Voice of Slavonia

July 15th 2009

"...First part of the concert featured the clarinetist Mihael Paar as a soloist in the Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A-major K581. This 4-movement piece of profane attributes in a formation fast-slow-menuet with trio-fast (closing Theme with variations) was composed in 1789 and inspired by clarinetist Anton Stadler, the solo-clarinetist of the Vienna's Court's Kapelle.

Mihael Paar shows the features of his basset clarinet performance acquired by many European clarinetists, and these are - in addition to outstanding intonation, superb techinque, great dynamic range - compilance in the chamber texture."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Snježana Miklaušić-Ćeran

Croatian Radio (Seven Days of Music) - transcript

April 5th 2009

"...Mr. Paar treated us with the noble sound of his basset clarinet and with snappy leaps of its extended compas..."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Mirta Špoljarić

Vjesnik Herald

March 31st,2009

"Mr. Paar made a distinctive impression, notably for his overall approach to music. His interpretations reflected a fine synthesis of intellectual and rational in expression with a profound artistic gesture. It is without saying extraordinary young musician."

AUTHOR / SOURCE

Dodi Komanov

HDGU Herald; September 2007

"...If that is so, and there is no reason not to believe in it when told by a clarinetist that that is really so. Hence, if so, this imperfection of the clarinet as such, it imposites a question byitself how to play on it, how to reach then that desirable, longing Perfect? ... Mihael Paar - Clarinet."

AUTHOR / SOURCE

Branko Magdić

Croatian Radio (From Portrait to Portrait)

"The chamber music cycle Piano pianissimo (Concert Management Zagreb) placed in the Zagreb historic Illyrian Hall, hosted a young Croatian virtuoso Mihael Paar and a Japanese pianist Hiroyo Imagawa. The clarinet which made a break as a solo-instrument only in the 19th century, on the concert podiums stays less present even today. This made a good occasion for the audience to witness its unique sound in, what seemed to be quite a comprehensive program composed in two rather simetrical parts. Thus each part had an opening piece of somewhat easier material, followed by the central piece firmly connected to the tradition, through which a much deeper and complex sonata form was reached. Likewise, the selection of composers (Gershwin, Benjamin, Brahms, Lovreglio, Klobučar, Poulenc) witnessed a wide range of performers' affinities and capacities. Mihael Paar, a multiple winner of several international competitions and a frequent figure of numerous concert projects in his homecountry and abroad, equally copes, as seen in his resume, with all music genres, amongst them both, stylized jazz and contemporary music.

Effective cohesion of classic and jazz, which at the start of the 20th century came as an exceptionally grateful genre for the clarinet, was noticeable at the very beginning in the Gershwin's Three Preludes, originally composed for piano alone. Hiroyo Imagawa, a young artist with a distinguished career of a concert pianist, who lives today in Salzburg, established herself in Gershwin's showpiece as an equal piano partner. An Interesting sound, skilful mesh of both instruments and a display of clarinet technique set out the composition Le Tombeau de Ravel by which the Aussie Arthur Benjamin gave his tribute to Maurice Ravel and to the French impressionism. Afterwards, the Brahms's four-movement Sonata for clarinet and piano in f-minor op.120 sounded rather serious and inhibited, but the interpretation of Mihael Paar and Hiroyo Imagawa pointed to the range and the power of Brahms's experience of clarinet and piano combination. Concert Fantasie on the motives from Verdi's La Traviata by Donato Lovreglio put the tehnical facilities of the clarinet in the spot, and Paar provided an appropriate respond followed by Klobučar's Suite in its rather short, but distinct movements which brought more introvert, but still clear and stable sound of both instruments. The concluding Sonata by Poulenc, one of the key works of modern clarinet literature with a demanding part of the leading instrument - quick leaps, tempo alterations and a complex treatment of the clarinet in general - but with a solid piano support, rounded the impression of performing maturity of Mihael Paar and Hiroyo Imagawa."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Ana Vidić

Croatian radio (Seven Days of Music) - transcript

March 11th, 2007

"Sebastian String Quartet and the clarinetist Mihael Paar who carried out the whole concert, presented themselves as the musicians of a highly sophisticated style and a strong inclination towards the works of the Viennese Clasics, especially those from the pen of W.A.Mozart. The programme offering what is the very best of Mozart set high objectives to the performers to which they, as already established artists, claimed with all good reason. Moreover special compliments go to the clarinetist Mihael Paar who, with the warmth of his instrument appeared to be an excellent counterbalance to the string quartet, performing at the same time as primus inter pares, yet without any pretensions that would lead him out of "chamber". M.Paar who has been studying at the famous Mozarteum School of Music in Salzburg for several years now, reveals in the interview after the concert that the style of his playing is distinctly German if not even entirely German, although he continues to play the French clarinet. To reach such a distinguished timbre, he has completely reformed the approach to his instrument, having also done corrections in impostation and respiratory technics. He points out that a sound like this so perfectly consistent with the works of Mozart, Schumann or Brahms, is being tended by the clarinetists coming from the German speaking areas which has been tradition ever since the time of A.Stadler, the clarinetist that Mozat wrote for. Clarinetists such as K. Leister, A.Brandhofer or W.Fuchs are among the best exponents of this tradition today.

It is also interesting to mention that Andrija Potroško, our well known contrabassist, a long time member of the famous Zagreb Soloists who did not hide his enthusiasm with the concert, in the end evoked his memories of the great Benny Goodman. Mr. Potroško was a member of the Symphony orchestra that Benny Goodman appeared with in Philadelphia in 1969 performing a famous Clarinet Concerto by W.A.Mozart. Mr. Potroško says that the expressiveness which he then experienced, he re-experienced today through the inspired performance of M.Paar, whose warm and rounded sound tranquilly celebrated over the aura of the Mozart's masterpiece."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Marijan Hranilović

SSN Herald; May 19th, 2006

"...With this recital, clarinetist Mihael Paar showed high range of sonority in all registers of his attractively movable instrument along with virtuosity of clear articulation in legato as well as in much more difficult staccato which particularly became prominent in the last encore- composition by N. Rimsky-Korsakov. His performance drew enthusiastic applause of the audience..."

AUTHOR / SOURCE:

Zlatko Stahuljak

Vijenac; February 3rd, 2005

6 Quartets for 4 Bb Clarinets

"Adagio by M.Paar stands as a single movement piece, tripartite in form in which the author uses classical language of harmony applying motivic work with the usage of sequences. The contrast in which features of romantic mood can be seen is being emphasized by changing alteration of tonality and tempo. The instrument is used in its full range, while performance requires maturity, rhythmical stability and chamber seriousness. One very interesting and educationally beneficial movement."

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