Ireland: Fantasy Sonata

This is Volume 1 in a new series of British Clarinet Sonatas, featuring the exclusive Chandos artist Michael Collins in works by Bax, Bliss, Howells, Ireland, and Stanford. He is accompanied by the pianist Michael McHale. Their ‘Lyrical Clarinet’ disc received much praise, among others from BBC Music which noted: ‘It’s hard to imagine this programme better played than it is here by Collins and McHale… technically impeccable.’

Stanford is perhaps best known for his larger-scale works, such as his symphonies and the Clarinet Concerto, but he also wrote much delightful chamber music. The Clarinet Sonata is a superb example of the composer’s contributions to this genre, the work displaying distinct echoes of Brahms, before concluding in hushed tranquillity.

Stanford was a Professor of Music at Cambridge and Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music, simultaneously, for nearly forty years. To list those who studied with him reads like a roll-call of British composers of the first half of the twentieth century, and this disc features the sonatas of two of his students: John Ireland, whose works are closely affiliated with French impressionism, and Howells, whose Clarinet Sonata is dedicated to Frederick Thurston. In his day, Thurston taught many prominent clarinettists, including the soloist on this disc, Michael Collins.

Also on this disc is one of the earliest surviving works by Sir Arthur Bliss who burst onto the British musical scene in the 1920s, writing music inspired by Stravinsky, Ravel, and jazz – music that rebelled against the conservative values represented by Stanford. His Pastoral, however, is an early work, and pre-dates these stylistic extremes.

Sir Arnold Bax described himself as ‘a brazen romantic’, and the Clarinet Sonata recorded here is influenced by Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Debussy, and by Irish and Celtic landscapes and literature.

A composition pupil of Stanford and recognised as an outstanding talent by Parry, John Ireland was inspired as student by the music of Beethoven, Brahms and Elgar, and later by Debussy, Ravel and the early Stravinsky.

This recording features the genial, Brahmsian 1898 Sextet for clarinet, French horn and string quartet, unheard in public until 1960, and a reconstruction by the Canadian clarinettist and clarinet maker Stephen Fox of the Clarinet Trio of 1912-14.

Also included are Robert Plane’s transcription for clarinet and piano of Ireland’s very popular piano prelude The Holy Boy, written on Christmas Day 1913, and one of Ireland’s finest and most beautifully crafted chamber works, the Fantasy Sonata for clarinet and piano (1943).

A unique release from DUX, featuring some of the most romantic clarinet music composed by English composers in the early to mid part of the 20th century. The major work on this recording is the Ireland piece, a mature work, written during the war in 1943 for a remarkable English clarinettist, Frederick Thurston.

This comprehensive two-disc collection is now re-released at the price of 2 for 1. Ireland’s chamber music is recognised as including some of his most profound and personal works. Lydia Mordkovitch plays the complete violin sonatas, accompanied by Ian Brown. The Strad commented on Mordkovitch’s performance, ‘her playing in the sonatas is quite superb and her interpretations so idiomatic’. The Penguin Guide awarded the discs 3 stars, and

wrote, ‘the two Violin Sonatas are both superb… masterfully played here by Lydia Mordkovitch with Ian Brown’.

In the passionately intense Piano Trio No. 3, a larger chamber work, Ireland also demonstrates that he could develop his striking, memorable themes. Completing the set is a recording of the Fantasy Sonata for clarinet and piano, performed by Gervase de Peyer and Gwenneth Pryor.