Composer: Robin Stevens
Performer: Rosa Campos, Clifford Llantaff, Sophie Rosa, Katie Stillman, Rosemary Attree, Alastair Vennart, Christine Anderson, Nicholas Trygstad, Alexander Jones, David Jones, Amy Yule, Craig Ogden
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Divine Art
Catalogue: DDA25236
Release: 2023
Size: 1.28 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Clarinet Quintet
01. I. Quasi una fantasia
02. II. Allegro spiritoso
03. III. Adagio con moto
04. IV. Allegro vivo
05. Obsession
06. Fantasy Trio
07. Chasing Shadows
08. Romantic Fantasy
Stevens manages to blend the often dominating clarinet with subtle warmth and colour with the strings, giving the Clarinet Quintet a distinctive character of its own. An important strand in Stevens’ compositional output since 2007 has been writing music for relativelyneglected instruments such as the tuba, the piccolo and the bassoon, and this strand was strengthened in the autumn of 2015 when he wrote a collection of six pieces for double bass and piano, to which Chasing Shadows and Obsession belong. The Fantasy Trio (2009) is a relatively rare instance of a substantial chamber work combining the classical guitar with mainstream orchestral instruments. The Romantic Fantasy for flute (doubling piccolo), B flat clarinet, string quartet and harp (2010), is written for the same forces as Ravel’s ground-breaking Introduction and Allegro. The Romantic Fantasy is an ambitious work in one movement, an unbroken span of twenty three minutes’ music.