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Fanfare

“Contemporary Music for Clarinets” is the subtitle of this disc, and it describes the contents well—although is Elizabeth Lutyens (1906–83) contemporary? The sound of the music is contemporary throughout, though (and Lutyens sounds more modern and immediate than much music being composed today; discuss …)

The music of Elizabeth Lutyens remains unforgivably underestimated; the Fanfare Archive has a mere six entries, one of which is a single song on a vocal recital. Pianist Martin Jones is doing good things recording her piano works on the Resonus label; personally, I have memories of the sadly and criminally now disbanded Psappha ensemble performing Lutyens’s The Valley of Hatsu-Se, op. 62 (1965, but unpublished until 1996) at Hallé St Peter’s in Manchester in November 2019.

It was the basset horn player Georgina Dobrée (1930–2008) who did so much for the instrument; and it was Georgina’s mother, Valentine Dobrée (1894–1974) whose poetry, published under the title The Green Tide (a phrase itself taken from John Ruskin’s pamphlets) inspired Lutyens’s piece. Dedicated to the memory of Georgina Dobrée and her father Bonamy, The Green Tide is clearly carefully organized and yet boasts a lyricism that counteracts any accusations of dryness or academicism. Ronald Woodley and Andrew East both phrase beautifully in phrases that are often intervalically disjunct. Repeated listening is recommended: “uncompromising” melts into “purity of utterance.” Nothing is wasted. Dobrée herself recorded this piece, and it has been released on the Clarinet Classics label, a fine performance that features Morris Pert on piano; we will meet him with his composer’s hat on soon, and it is worthwhile mentioning that my colleague Martin Anderson reviewed the Dobrée in Fanfare 19:6. There is no doubting that the Metier recording itself is better, particularly when it comes to a piano tone with body, but Dobrée and Pert’s account remains compelling. Ideally, in this instance, hear both.

The next composer is a name relatively new to me, Angela Elizabeth Slater (b. 1989), who offers the first of the newly commissioned works here. Slater already has been a Tanglewood Composition Fellow, and selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society Composer program; back in 2017–18 she was a Britten-Pears Young Artist. My only contact with her previously was via the Ivors Awards last year, as her piece Through the Fading Hour was nominated for the Best Large Ensemble Composition; it was commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and there is a fabulous performance on YouTube conducted by Brett Dean, with Richard Waters as viola soloist. Her Around the Darkening Sun for bass clarinet and piano was commissioned in 2020; it therefore coincided with the UK lockdowns due to the coronavirus. The sense of Angst around this time, bolstered by a NASA article stating that the sun is getting dimmer year by year, inspired her piece. It begins in the depths of both instruments’ registers; at the opening, material enjoys only passing, fragmentary connections, although the two instruments are sometimes timbrally linked via extended techniques on the clarinet. While the subject matter might not be the happiest, the beauty here is remarkable. Andrew West plays with delicacy, variety, and a sense of umbilical connection to Woodley. The agility of the bass clarinet is finely explored by Slater, and I look forward to hearing much more from this young lady.

The disc takes its title from Luminos for basset horn and piano by Morris Pert (1947–2010). This is another piece invoking the name of Georgina Dobrée, for whom it was written in 1972. There is an urgency to Pert’s writing in Luminos, even in the quieter moments, coupled with an almost star-like pointillism, both captured to perfection here. Pert went on to become a session musician and formed his own experimental group, Suntreader; one can pick up some jazz inflections here, too. The soundscape is spectacularly wide thanks to extended piano techniques. This is a compelling piece that glows with a somewhat austere aura.

One name familiar from Fanfare is that of Christopher Fox, and here we have another premiere recording: This has happened before, for four multi-tracked basset clarinets, written during the COVID lockdown. The opening melody is played by all four “performers” (it can be performed by four clarinetists, or multi-tracked as here) but each one is quicker, so they finish at around the same time. An ascent follows, based on the notes of the harmonic series, followed by a “compression” of events moving towards a final reconciliation of the four “voices.” To my ears it feels like a slow processional, and I do wonder if one would hear more resultant harmonics in a live performance. Written specifically for Ronald Woodley, This has happened before has an austere and possibly unique beauty.

When Elizabeth Lutyens said “little,” she meant it. Her Five Little Pieces for clarinet and piano are deliciously pithy. Although they were written in 1945, this appears to be their first recording. Each of the five pieces has an Italian title (“Lirico”; “Drammatico”; “Doloroso”; “Pastorale”; “Declamatoso”) that Woodley and West deliver perfectly (it would be possible to play “guess the title” from the sound alone, I imagine). There is huge character in these little snippets, perhaps particularly in the central “Doloroso,” and not too much that is forbidding. This makes the arrival of Liz Dilnot Johnson’s The Space between Heaven and Earth all the more impressive. It is scored for basset horn and piano (the basset horn was the one type of clarinet Johnson did not write for in her clarinet quintet Sea-change, commissioned by Woodley and recorded by him in 2019). It was the “woody” sound of the basset horn that created a link in the composer’s mind with the Greek myth of Daphne (who asked to be turned into a tree to avoid Apollo’s advances). In this version, her time as a tree enables Daphne to heal and to re-emerge as human. There are four movements: “Winter,” “Spring,” “Summer,” and “Autumn.” Johnson uses a Hildegard of Bingen melody to represent Daphne the tree, contrasted with chromatic sonorities representing the loss of Daphne’s corporeal body. Falling thirds represent space between Heaven and Earth. While most of the argument rests with “Winter,” it is the concluding “Autumn” that is the most overtly beautiful.

I enjoyed Edward Cowie’s A Charm of Australian Finches on Flute Vox (Fanfare 39:6), referring to its “bejewelled complexity.” His Heather Jean Nocturnes were composed “at white-hot speed” after the rest of the works on this disc had been recorded, in April 2023 in response to five of his wife Heather Cowie’s artworks. Both artist and composer are inspired by the natural world around them, so (pardon the pun) this is a musical marriage made in heaven. Heather Jean Nocturnes is decidedly international, in fact intercontinental, in scope as two movements are inspired by England while others are inspired by Australia and Africa. Scored for bass clarinet and piano, this is probably the most demanding yet rewarding music on the disc; underlying it all at a deep, deep level are the nocturnes of Chopin. Cowie writes in a modernist manner and yet, in the first movement (“The Singing Stream—Evening”), he is nevertheless able to conjure up a real feeling of stillness. Planets dance in the second piece (“Sun and Moon Dancing”), a silvery, celestial, slow exhibition of grace, and one which includes the single best example of clarinet multiphonics I have heard anywhere from Ronald Woodley. There is definitely a fluidity to “Okavengo Dream Streams” that follows (the title linking water and the subconscious nicely). Silence plays a real part in the fourth movement, “Lake Eacham Blue,” but most impressive is “Earth Nocturnal”: darkness speckled with light, and on a performative level a further demonstration of how multiphonics should be done. The performance throughout is faultless, and the work just invites further exploration of Cowie’s music: I find myself impatient to seek out the Metier disc of his String Quartets (reviewed by Phillip Scott in Fanfare 40:1) The paintings are reproduced (in color) in the booklet.

It is very difficult to find fault with any aspect of this disc, from performance and recording to selection of repertoire. This is absolutely not for clarinetists only, and I shall be keeping my eyes peeled for concerts featuring the music of Angela Elizabeth Slater.