SPLENDID BRITISH CLARINET WORKS
Gerald FINZI Five Bagatelles (1940s)
[17.30]
Arnold BAX Clarinet Sonata (1934)
[15.08]
Eric HUGHES Sonata Capriccioso (1963-64)
[9.34]
Charles Villiers STANFORD Clarinet Sonata (1912)
[22.21]
John IRELAND Fantasy-Sonata (1943) [15.04]
John Denman (clarinet)
Paula Fan (piano)
rec 1970s-1990s, GSMD and The Barbican, London
BRITISH MUSIC LABEL BML 009 [79.37]
This disc is the market leader on the strengths of its generosity of spirit
and timing, its sleek but not steely tone and its breadth of coverage of
core British clarinet works.
Denman's recording on Lyrita LP (SRCS92 never reissued on CD) of the Finzi
Clarinet Concerto was the only version to be had until Thea King's Hyperion
version appeared. Since then there has been a small flood of versions and
no wonder. The Bagatelles were not at all rated by Finzi but, then,
he was his own ruthless critic and was as wrong to condemn these little gems
as he was perhaps right to suppress the outer movements of Violin Concerto
recently recorded by Chandos. The soft contoured enchantment of these miniatures
contrasts with the rugged edginess of his close friend Howard Ferguson's
contemporaneous Five Bagatelles for solo piano. The lullaby rocking
of the Forlana is quintessential Finzi but with a franker smile than
he found for works like the Cello Concerto.
Bax's waters were a more perilous ocean than Finzi's for if Finzi was a
philosopher of the countryside and Englishness, Bax moved most convincingly
in the world of rough passion, sagas and Sibelian fantasy. His 1934 Clarinet
Sonata is slap bang in the middle of his strongest period. It was the
1930s that yielded up the Fifth and Sixth symphonies. The work is in two
sections the first rhapsodic and the second vigorous - taken at a real 'lick'
by Denman and Fan. It is a work that rather like the Bowen Flute Sonata on
another BML disc. It feels epic and entangled in emotional conflict and
exhaustion. Some of the first movement is perhaps too dense with undergrowth.
Eric 'Spike' Hughes studied with Alan Bush and Franz (not Fritz, please
- another mark against the proof-reading of the notes which suffer from a
splatter of errors) Reizenstein. In the Sonata Capriccioso he
sounds like neither. The music gallops along cheekily in the
micro-Tarantella - a real wake-up call for the listener. The bipartite
second movement follows a lovely andante with a roistering
brioso. A work of well-judged length - in this sense and perhaps in
a few others this is of a piece with the music of Geoffrey Bush. It was written
in 1963/64 for John Denman who recorded it (this time with pianist Hazel
Vivienne) for the long defunct Revolution LP label on RCF 009 coupled with
the Bax and Stanford Sonatas. Denman is no stranger to this territory.
The well-filled frame of Stanford's opulent Brahmsian Clarinet
Sonata was first performed by Charles Draper. Indeed long before Chandos
blessed us with the seven symphonies and Del Mar gave us the Irish Symphony
on EMI, this sonata kept Stanford's name alive with record collectors
- John Bradbury's recording never made it to CD. The Brahmsian voice is clearest
from the piano part which repeatedly reminisces around the German master's
piano concertos. Brahmsian it is (with plenty of Schumann as well, by the
way) but this is no obstacle to its enjoyment. There is no plagiarism here
only the use of a language established and firmly rooted. Its sincerity is
indubitable.
Issues of homage do not arise in the case of the John Ireland Clarinet
Sonata. It is a late work written amidst the darker depths of the Second
World War. This sonata has more in common with the rhapsodic tendency than
the classical structure. There is more of Bax (whose own sonata predates
the Ireland by ten years) in this than of Finzi; indeed this is not a work
of any facile pastoral tradition. Ireland was much taken with the hidden
England and with the evanescent rustling of Celtic and Roman legend amid
the brakes and hillsides. A single 15 minute structure Denman and Fan lead
us fluently through the thickets and the old and forgotten songs that sing
and vibrate. This is a most poetic and persuasive performance radiantly playing
out a desirable disc.
Rob Barnett
UK is £10 incl UK P&P
abroad, the appropriate extra - Please approach Mr Skeet for quote.
Mike Skeet at F.R.C.
44 Challacombe
Furzton
Milton Keynes MK4 1DP
phone/fax +44 (0)1908 502836
email:
mike.skeet@btinternet.com
www.skeetmusic.com
Arnold Bax
John
Ireland
