The excellent clarinettist Peter Cigleris, together with fine pianist
Antony Gray, has constructed a good-looking recital that balances
works from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s with more contemporary fare.
The focus is on British music, though John Carmichael is Australian.
Alwyn’s Clarinet Sonata of 1962 receives a richly committed performance,
fluid with regard to rubato, sensitively coloured, and showing due
regard for the pacing of the many incidents in this twelve-minute
work. Its refined lyricism jostles with a very assertive sense of
self, almost as if chamber intimacies were vacuum-packed with film
music outtakes; the final section features a spectacular dismount,
and the performers are fully up to its rigorous and exciting demands.
Carmichael’s Fêtes Champêtres has traces of Poulenc and is
freshly lyrical. Cast in Baroque sounding movements — Pastorale,
Passepied, Berceuse and Rigaudon — Carmichael
ensures sufficient contrast always to interest the ear. The wistful
B section in the Rigaudon is especially distinguished. His
Aria and Finale is the longest work here, at nearly 16 minutes
in this performance. Originally written for soprano saxophone it translates
well to the clarinet. The long lyrical lines, a touch impressionist,
are certainly well suited for the instrument. The light-hearted dialogues
in the Finale are both fulsome and loquacious; there’s a
good cadenza and much graceful writing offering excellent opportunities
for variety of tone colour, rubato and elasticity of phrasing. Perhaps
it’s a touch too long; my only complaint.
Clive Jenkins’ Five Pieces was written in 2003 and premiered
by the composer and Cigleris. These artful little pieces are a constant
delight. The central one has a light dusting of Fauré at the outset,
and has taken on a life of its own. Originally written as an orchestral
entr’acte it was for years the signature tune for a BBC Radio Devon
programme. Rightly so: it’s a memorable theme. To add to the pleasure
there’s a witty fugue and a whirling waltz to conclude. Armstrong
Gibbs’ Three Pieces embrace a March theme, not unlike unwritten
film music, and a delightful song-without-words in the shape of a
second movement Air.
The disc itself finishes with a performance of John Ireland’s sonata,
performances of which are coming much more often these days. Cigleris
has listened to Ireland’s own performance, he notes; this is the off-air
broadcast with Frederick Thurston that featured on a couple of BBC3
Radio broadcasts and then was made commercially available. Despite
Ireland’s strictures on piano chordal weight and steady tempi, I’ve
noted before that he frequently clips his recommended timings in his
own works. It’s the same in this Sonata where he and Thurston take
around 13 and a half minutes, a similar timing adopted by Michael
Collins in his most recent Collins disc. Cigleris and Gray take 14:12,
similar to Gervase de Peyer and Eric Parkin on Lyrita. In the end
it’s a relatively small difference, though it’s not without consequences,
and what matters most is how one binds its three moods, the rhapsodic
quality of which needs to be subject to some control. Fortunately
this pairing is not lacking, and they bring nuance and insight to
bear, as well as fine tone and ensemble, as indeed they do the whole
well recorded recital.
Jonathan Woolf
See a[so review by Rob
Barnett
