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Clarinet & Saxophone Magazine

This album features new and recent clarinet music by British composers including four written specially for Ronald Woodley. Elizabeth Lutyens is certainly the best-known composer here. Five Little Pieces is, typically for her, a serial composition; yet her use of the form (in common with Alban Berg) displays a sense of lyrical line, while being very concise in nature. The longest piece is only one minute and 41 seconds, and the shortest just 35 seconds. This Green Tide is much longer and displays a range of emotions which shows off the basset horn sound qualities well. It is inspired by a series of complex poetry by Valentine Dobree, which in turn took its title from one of a series of pamphlets by John Ruskin where he portrays a world on the brink: “the Sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and Death, and Hell, give up the dead in them.” 

Angela Elizabeth Slater’s Around the Darkening Sun carries on this sense of foreboding, with world events spinning out of control. The music explores the range of both the bass clarinet and piano from the lowest sounds to the highest. It literally explodes at the start and seems to disappear in fragments which spin out to the very edge of space itself. 

The longest piece is by Edward Cowie: Heather Jean Nocturnes is a response to five paintings by his wife. These are reproduced in the CD booklet and they certainly give you a feel for the music. It’s worth reading the programme note before listening to this piece to gain an understanding of the interaction between the bass clarinet and the piano. Certainly it enhances the feel of sonority and colour displayed in the music. 

I was puzzled by This Has Happened Before by Christopher Fox; written for four multitracked bass clarinets, the piece passed me by in a fog. It was just a series of sounds, which did not seem to have much shape. Certainly the music is very spare; I would like to see the score to see what I should have been hearing. 

For me the two most rewarding pieces were The Space Between Heaven and Earth by Liz Dilnot Johnson and Luminos by Morris Pert. Johnson’s narrative could be clearly heard in the music and it was nice to have a piece which seemed to end in a more joyful spirit. Luminos I found very engaging; the pianist uses a number of techniques including finger and mallet tremolo on the strings, pizzicato, harmonics produced by moving a rubber mallet along the strings and glissandi. All this added to a work which for me brought a slight relief to the more angular music heard in the other pieces. 

This is a great resource for representing British contemporary music. Ronald Woodley should be congratulated on actively expanding the music available today for the basset horn and bass clarinet.