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Musical opinion

This unique selection of music for clarinet and piano is made up of short original pieces, arrangements and transcriptions of a wide variety of music, almost all of it melodic and lyrical. The general music lover, however, may query why only one movement of Brahms’ first Clarinet Sonata, or only the finale of Joseph Horovitz’s Sonata, or merely two of Finzi’s Five Bagatelles are included – ‘bleeding chunks’ as used to be said – and not the complete works from which these individual movements have been excerpted.

{note: this is an unfair comment – as was well explained the entire Brahms and Finzi works  appear on Helen’s sequel album (DDA 25226) for which this is in part an ‘appetiser’ – also aimed very directly at the light-classics market…}

The result is good playing from both artists but the selection is unlikely to appeal to the serious music lover – the market for such a repertoire selection is clearly clarinet-fanciers and players of the instrument. The recording quality is excellent, as is the playing, but one cannot help feeling that the appeal of this disc is likely to be strictly limited.{again, a little unfair – the appeal of the disc to Classic FM listeners (disc of the week) is far greater than to ‘core classical’ followers}