Output details

Nigel Clarke, Edwin Roxburgh, Martin Ellerby, Kit Turnbull: British Clarinet Quintets.

This CD is the latest manifestation of my continuing project to commission new works for clarinet and string quartet, in order both to augment the rich repertoire of work in this genre stemming from the late eighteenth-century onwards, and to stimulate writing in the medium, particularly by British composers. Each of the composers here was at a different stage in his career, and had differing levels of experience in working collaboratively with performers. All were invited and encouraged to work closely with me and the Navarra quartet from the outset of the compositional process until its realisation. As rehearsals progressed, it became clear that my initial assumption that a composer with less experience would be more receptive to the chance to work with the musicians proved to be erroneous. In fact, the composers with greater experience relished the opportunity to engage with the performers on both a philosophical and practical level throughout the process, experimenting with different technical, structural and interpretative approaches, and making significant changes to their evolving works. Those with less experience tended to limit their input to minor adjustments of articulation, phrasing and balance, which enhanced the latter stages of the collaborative process but did not lead to major changes to the score. The recording thus represents not only a new body of work, but also the outcome of a variety of collaborative models.