Ian Stephens: Chamber Music showcases the lyricism, clarity, and nuance of folk music. Stephens, raised in Devon, England is both a composer and arranger, and has the unique ability of highlighting music’s most natural tendencies, whether written by himself or others. The album begins with Celtic Elegy, written in 2002 for Stephens’s wife, clarinetist Mandy Burvill. Based on the Irish tune She Moved Through the Fair, this work is the middle movement of Stephens’s Three Miniatures for clarinet and cello. Burvill and cellist Heather Tuach combined their instruments as one as they played with a bagpipe inspired sound in this calming and beautiful work.

The album continues with Springhead Echoes and the Clarinet Quintet, which were both written in 2017 to celebrate the lives of Rosalind and Brian Richards, two close colleagues of Stephens. The Fitzwilliam String Quartet presented both the light pizzicato moments of the first two movements of Springfield Echoes and the softer, more melancholy sections of the third movement with equal ease and finesse. Stephens incorporates Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 themes flawlessly into this work while also incorporating his own use of counterpoint, melody, and harmony. The Clarinet Quintet calls from themes by Beethoven, specifically the Prisoners’ Chorus, “O welche Lust” from Fidelio, and also continues with use of the Brahms theme. A familiar soundscape of upbeat pizzicato carried on into this piece as Burvill and the quartet performed with enthusiasm and immaculate technique. The lyrical sections matched the more technical, bringing out themes with subtle dynamics and emotional melodies.

The latter half of the album includes North Country (2021), a dance-like piece commissioned by instrument maker Paul Bryant, followed by Oboe Quintet (2014), which features oboist Jonathan Small. Small begins this work with a solo in the oboe’s rich middle register, leading into an impressive Bach-inspired lyrical and technical soundscape displayed by him and the Fitzwilliam Quartet. Small finishes off the piece once again in a solo, with distinct yet subtle vibrato and a warm tone.