In the Summer of 2000 I had the great pleasure of meeting James Gillespie, editor of The Clarinet Journal, during the International Clarinet Association (ICA) convention in Oklahoma. James asked me if I would like to contribute a regular column. These personal reflections are now reprinted with his permission. The following ‘Letter from the UK’ was first published in December 2001 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.
I love the summer and always feel a tinge of sadness as the long, warm evenings begin to close in and the wonderful scents and colours in my small, but reasonably well-tended, English country garden begin to fade. To compensate I work doubly hard! So here’s what I’ve been up to (although no doubt you’ll be thinking about decorating the Christmas tree and buying the Christmas pudding by the time you read this!) ...
I’ve just finished playing in this year’s Stowe Opera production of Dvorak’s Rusalka. And what a gem of an opera it is; marvellous melodies, and particularly gorgeous clarinet writing too! We present a very similar package to the more widely-known Glyndebourne Opera – a long interval in which to enjoy a relaxing outdoor picnic between acts, with the fabulous eighteenth-century gardens at Stowe providing the perfect setting.
As well as teaching, playing and writing, I also have my own small publishing company, Queen’s Temple Publications. In this capacity, I spent a fascinating evening at Sir Malcolm Arnold’s home a few weeks ago, which has resulted in three particularly interesting works being added to our catalogue. We were searching through some old boxes that normally reside in the Arnold attic, and came across a song. The words were by Arnold’s sister, and the piece composed when he was about 13. Beauty Haunts the Woods is a delightful song and studying it carefully, I could see the potential for adding a clarinet part. (As an aside, readers ought to know the Three Songs of Innocence by Arnold Cooke for voice, clarinet and piano– a favourite of mine and a fine work for this slightly neglected combination). I took the music home and made the arrangement; Sir Malcolm approved and so it will be appearing soon.
Next, we found a piano piece written when Arnold was 17 – Dream City. Even though it was written at this tender age, it has all the hallmarks of the composer’s style. Again, I felt it could be very successful as an arrangement and this time the textures cried out for setting as a wind quintet. I had no doubt that Arnold had originally conceived the piece with orchestral sounds in mind. He has always had such an ear for colour – and this piece made such a natural transition from piano to wind quintet that that I felt he must have been thinking instrumentally when it was first composed, in 1938. The third piece is the most exciting and readers may already know it in the clarinet and orchestra version. The ‘Scherzetto’ from the film You Know What Sailors Are, made in 1953, has been recorded both by Thea King and John Bradbury. It is due to be published for clarinet and piano and demonstrates the composer in fine form. Written just a couple of years after the Sonatina, there are many similarities with his most popular work – the scurrying semiquavers/sixteenth notes, the fondness for melodic semitones and the sheer vitality and good humour of the tunes. At the time of writing, I am arranging a recital in Norwich where the ‘first’ performance of these works will take place in the presence of the composer, just a week after Sir Malcolm’s 80th birthday.
The new academic year is about to begin and in the UK, schools and Music Services (regional organisations that co-ordinate instrumental teaching in Government-maintained schools) prepare in-service ‘training’ a few days before the term begins. I will therefore be travelling far and wide over the next week; to institutions in Scotland and Wales, and the lovely cities of Oxford and Bath. It is a real privilege to work with enthusiastic teachers discussing ideas, strategies, approach and philosophy. I love this work – it is both highly stimulating and rewarding – and I learn a huge amount from it. It also allows me to meet some wonderful people who really understand the immense joy of teaching – their pupils are very lucky.
Among the various books I am working at presently is a volume of new clarinet music, specially commissioned from contemporary composers all over the world. The twist is that the music is must be approachable to younger players who may not yet have particularly advanced technique. Music in the most up-to-date idioms should not just be the preserve of the ‘professional’ and I hope this collection may prove a little bit ground-breaking! More about it next year.
Happy Christmas!
Tea and Bagatelles with the Finzis
In the Summer of 2000 I had the great pleasure of meeting James Gillespie, editor of The Clarinet Journal, during the International Clarinet Association (ICA) convention in Oklahoma. James asked me if I would like to contribute a regular column. These personal reflections are now reprinted with his permission. The following ‘Letter from the UK’ was first published in September 2001 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.
Readers of my previous letter may be begining to think that I spend much of my time having tea with musical celebrities! A few weeks ago, I took a pupil to play Gerald Finzi’s Five Bagatelles to the composer’s son, Christopher. The Finzi family has been living in Church Farm – a wonderfully sprawling house designed by Gerald himself – for years. The book-lined room where Jonathan performed was the very one in which the work was written and our pianist accompanied on the very piano Gerald used to compose the music. This is Finzi’s centenary year and his music is, deservedly, receiving a great many performances, with over twenty professional performances of the Concerto and at least a similar number of the Five Bagatelles programmed over the next few months alone. There will undoubtedly be others.
The Bagatelles were written over a four-year period and Boosey & Hawkes did not, at first, intend to publish them as a set. The Prelude, Romance, Carol and Forlana were given their first performance by Pauline Juler and Howard Ferguson at the National Gallery in London on January 15th 1943, at one of the famous war-time concerts there. The Carol was probably written first; the Fughetta was added later that year. Gerald may have used the title ‘Carol’ in its old English meaning of a song, or perhaps he intended it as kind of Christmas carol without words. Whichever, it is a delightfully charming miniature full of imagery and subtlety: is that the clock striking six – or seven? – at the end, heralding the dawn of Christmas Day? The Prelude is a substantial movement and, in the words of an early review in The Times ‘shows that a diatonic scale may still be used as the basis of a vigorous theme’. Finzi’s use of counterpoint and imaginative textures in this and indeed each of the movements, guarantee that this piece is more than just an occasional trifle – a mere bagatelle – there is always much for the musical intellect to savour.
The Romance is full of delicious melody and countermelody and the middle section, for me at least, is quintessential Finzi. The appearance of the Forlana on exam syllabuses in the UK (from shortly after its composition) has ensured its familiarity to practically every British clarinettist. Evidently the title gave Finzi cause for concern. He couldn’t decide whether it was a ‘Forlane’ (a type of Neapolitan dance) or a ‘Berceuse’. His friend, the composer Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986) suggested (with tongue firmly in cheek) that he might consider ‘Berlane’ or ‘Forceuse’! For those with an analytical bent, it is full of fascinating compositional devices.
The Fughetta came last and caused Finzi some anxiety; ‘It has turned out to be rather larger in scale and more difficult than the others and I only hope that it’s not outside the Bagatelles’ radius’, he wrote to his friend Howard Ferguson. He needn’t have worried; it is a fitting and balanced finale.
Jonathan’s performance of this lovely work in the intimate surroundings of Gerald Finzi’s music room was a very special experience. The ‘mini-recital’ also included Howard Ferguson’s ‘Four Short Pieces’ – a work that sits very closely in style to the Bagatelles. Written a few years before the Finzi, and perhaps of slightly lesser stature, they make a perfectly delightful concert item.
After the concert, Jonathan had his picture taken sitting in a chair that once belonged to George Washington! (I can never remember the details of how the Finzi family came by this wonderfully historical piece of furniture, but there was a link in the families that goes back many years.) The garden boasts two very fascinating features. One of these is the apple orchard: Gerald loved growing apples, and one can still find (and enjoy!) many of the varieties he cultivated. The second is the well. It is perhaps the deepest well in England and we were treated to an exciting fireworks display as Christopher lit a newspaper and dropped it down...
In composing the Five Bagatelles, and, some years later, the wonderful Clarinet Concerto, Gerald Finzi probably never imagined what lasting pleasure he would give to clarinet players and audiences alike. It is a small, but very important legacy.
Sir Malcolm
In the Summer of 2000 I had the great pleasure of meeting James Gillespie, editor of The Clarinet Journal, during the International Clarinet Association (ICA) convention in Oklahoma. James asked me if I would like to contribute a regular column. These personal reflections are now reprinted with his permission. The following ‘Letter from the UK’ was first published in March 2001 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.
Last weekend I was privileged to have tea with the great composer Sir Malcolm Arnold. Without doubt he’s the elder statesman of British music and a composer whose stature seems to grow as the years pass. This particular meeting was to allow Sir Malcolm to hear my 14-year-old pupil, Jonathan Howse, play his wonderful Sonatina. Sir Malcolm was visibly moved by the performance and afterwards we had the opportunity to chat about the piece. I’ve played it, talked about it and taught it so many times yet didn’t know that the very first performance was given by the British conductor Sir Colin Davis (a clarinettist in his younger days!). Even at the age of 80, Sir Malcolm has a tremendous memory, and he spoke of thirty and forty year-old experiences with great clarity and enthusiasm.
Arnold’s contribution to the clarinet repertoire is of great significance. His clarinet writing is always idiomatic; the lyrical and reflective nature of the instrument is omnipresent alongside the energetic, robust and virtuosic. In addition to the Sonatina, there are the two concertos and the Fantasy for Unaccompanied Clarinet. The clarinet features in the exhilarating Three Shanties for Wind Quintet (a real favourite of mine) and the colourful Divertimento for Wind Trio. Also, we can sometimes forget that he wrote over 70 film scores, and often included intricate clarinet solos in many of them, knowing that they would be recorded by his great friend Frederick ‘Jack’ Thurston. In fact much of his music has been written for particular friends in mind. Often it is the character and nature of these friends that pervade and inspire the substance of particular works: again, Jack Thurston haunts both the First Concerto and the Sonatina; and Benny Goodman was clearly peering over the composer’s shoulder when Arnold was writing his Second Concerto!
I am particularly happy that my own publishing company, Queen’s Temple Publications, publish the Divertimento for two clarinets Op. 135. It was written in July 1988 and, given that Arnold has not composed anything for a good number of years now, is one of his very last works. It’s a further important addition to Arnold’s championing of the instrument and is perhaps most akin to the Wind Divertimento. Both works are cast in six short, vividly defined movements. Both combine that unmistakable wit and sumptuous melodic writing with moments of darker and more serious writing.
Sir Malcolm now lives in Norfolk, near the East coast, not far from the home of another of our great 20th-century composers, Benjamin Britten. The walls of Sir Malcolm’s main living room are covered in large portraits of himself at varying stages of his distinguished life, and it is quite easy to trip over one of his old trumpets, which are scattered informally about the floor! (He spent many years as principal trumpet in the London Philharmonic Orchestra and clearly likes to be constantly reminded of this!) And you can’t miss the very large television which resides in the corner, on which he loves watching his old films. My teacher, John Davies and Sir Malcolm had been good friends for many years (John had in fact given one of the earliest, if not the first broadcast performances of the Sonatina) and he spoke warmly of their shared experiences. We took a few pictures and Sir Malcolm signed Jonathan’s copy of the Sonatina before we finally bade our farewells. Being such an important anniversary year for Sir Malcolm, I suspect we shall be hearing a lot of the composer’s music over the next twelve months. And quite right too! Those who still regard Sir Malcolm Arnold as a composer of light music will have the chance to discover that his musical language has a deeper vein; and all will be able to celebrate the achievement of one of the greatest voices of our time.
A moment for reflection
In the Summer of 2000 I had the great pleasure of meeting James Gillespie, editor of The Clarinet Journal, during the International Clarinet Association (ICA) convention in Oklahoma. James asked me if I would like to write about my work – an invitation that I found both humbling and daunting! The following was the first ‘Letter from the UK’ published in December 2000 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.
So to begin: Two of my strongest guiding principles, from which all I that I do stems, are that I love to be of help, and have a great desire to make things happen. But the encouragement and inspiration of my own clarinet teacher has also been a key factor in my life. I was very lucky to have first met Professor John Davies when I was a mere ten years old, and he has remained a friend and mentor ever since. His insight into the clarinet and its repertoire, combined with a profound understanding of human nature and his extraordinary thirst for the good things in life have had a deep and lasting effect on my own nature. It is therefore to John that I owe what success I may have achieved thus far.
It was my mother who decided that I should play the clarinet. (As an aside, I well remember my great disappointment at finding that the instrument split up into small chunks and lived in a rather small and plain looking case. The image I had in my mind, of going to school each day carrying this tantalisingly long and fascinating case, causing my fellow travellers to look on with awe, thus never materialised!) I have been fascinated by teaching and composing ever since I can remember. At the age of about seven, with a group of friends, I would present ‘puppet-shows’ using a motley collection of stringed marionettes. I would teach all my fellow puppeteers how to manoeuvre their puppets, and would write both the script and the music. (I suspect I must have driven my friends mad!) An interest in teaching grew through my years as a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London and I wrote my first clarinet method soon after leaving. Like many other teachers, I was frustrated with the pedagogic materials available and felt the need for a method that included lots of really imaginative and interesting music for the young learner to play. A good number of years later the Cambridge Clarinet Tutor (my first publication) is still popular and set on exam syllabuses. Also it is very non-dictatorial; it leaves the ‘teaching’ to the teachers! I have always felt that teachers are an undervalued race – if you trust a good teacher, they will get on with their work and produce good results. I very much hope my first method encouraged this philosophy and approach.
Over the succeeding years, I have written many works for the clarinet. These include many ‘educational’ publications: the popular collection Summer Sketches; Suite in Five (a favourite time-signature of mine); Party Time and various albums that combine original pieces and arrangements, such as The Really Easy Clarinet Book, Music Through Time and Going Solo. On the more serious side I have written a Sonatina (whilst staying in Oxford for a few weeks) and an Adagio, premiered by Julian Bliss at the Oklahoma convention this year, which owes its inspiration to the Baermann Adagio, a work that I love. I was very moved by Julian’s tremendous performance.
Visions is a set of five pieces based on the characters of five particularly able and colourful pupils I had at the time (echoes of Nielsen painting his friends into his music!) and two of my five Buckingham Concertos, also written for pupils, feature the clarinet. Like many composers, I’m often asked about my principal influences. My love for French music, especially Poulenc and Ravel, have certainly made their mark. I was taught composition by Timothy Baxter – himself a pupil of both Priaulx Rainier (who wrote an intriguing Suite for clarinet and piano) and Nadia Boulanger. I also suspect certain ‘English’ gestures from the likes of Gerald Finzi, William Mathias and Malcolm Arnold have had some effect on my musical language. More recently, I have written a Sonata da Camera for unaccompanied clarinet and there are various chamber works that include the clarinet published by my own company Queen’s Temple Publications. Of these, if I were to choose a favourite, it would have to be The Unhappy Aardvark; written for wind quintet and narrator, it is based on a rather endearing ‘feel-good’ story for which I must admit responsibility!
Another publication is Essential Clarinet Technique. I wrote this jointly with my teacher, John Davies, and the actual process of writing it taught me a great deal. Surrounded by John’s books and antique furniture we spent hours, days, weeks and indeed months discussing and arguing over every aspect of clarinet playing. We wrote, re-wrote and then re-wrote again in the search for a really succinct and clear way of expressing the central issues. Later, I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute the chapter on clarinet teaching in the Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet. It is not easy to write about the principles of technique. For one thing, there are many ways to achieve a successful result. We are all built to slightly different specifications and what may work for one player may not for another. Therefore in thinking about technique, we must always be open-minded, searching, curious, imaginative, inquiring and inventive. Rarely should we tell our pupils to ‘do it like this’. I have often heard great players put forward their particular solutions to specific problems, in masterclasses for example. And very interesting these usually are – but great teachers are more circumspect. They will enable their pupils to solve the problems for themselves, and their pupils will be so much better off for that.
Perhaps the most exciting project to date has been my new clarinet tutor Clarinet Basics. Faber Music, my principal publisher, first suggested the project and we had great fun in developing the idea. To be given a second chance at writing a method must be a very rare occurrence and so I wanted to produce something really special for the twenty-first century! There were a number of criteria that I set myself. Of paramount importance was that there should always be humour – it had to be methodical and seriously thought-through, but in all the best lessons there needs to be a good deal of laughter. Secondly, young learners are much better learning what they want to know and what they need to know – there is little point in including unnecessary or superfluous detail or information. Next, the understanding of rhythm is crucial to the healthy development of the young clarinet player; I felt that many existing methods introduce rhythmic development too quickly. Rhythmic complexities therefore are introduced very methodically and cumulatively. Last, but by no means least, is that the book consists primarily of music! In writing Clarinet Basics we tried very hard to fulfil all these demanding criteria, and I am delighted that in the years since, it has become the leading clarinet method on the market.
In addition to writing for the clarinet, over the years I have developed a very deep interest in the processes of teaching and learning. For some years I was Head of Wind at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire. This is a wonderful school, with a music department situated in a Greek-style temple built in 1733, complete with porticos and columns. George III spent some time there and his wife, Queen Charlotte gave her name to the building, ‘The Queen’s Temple’. My time at Stowe was a true inspiration. The capacity of my pupils (all great characters) ranged fairly broadly on the intellectual spectrum, and they always demanded a great deal, but as a result caused me to give huge thought to virtually every aspect of musical tuition. Consequently I have written extensively, for example, on the learning of sight-reading and scales and have recently produced The Music Teacher’s Companion (published by The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London). My sight-reading series Improve Your Sight-reading! (published by Faber Music) has sold nearly a million copies worldwide (I include this information not out of vanity, but because I believe it to be such an important area of musicianship and sales seem to echo this). I have always been concerned that a lot of teaching fails because it doesn’t produce musically independent pupils. Pupils are too reliant on their teachers in all sorts of ways. Even basic music reading is often weak. That’s why I was so keen to produce a method to help young players develop these basic reading skills. The Improve Your Scales! series was another such interesting project. Scales are of course hugely important in the development of the young player’s technique but it is, understandably, very difficult to enthuse your average pupil to go away and practise them! (The great player Karl Leister once told me that as a child he would sometimes practise scales for up to eight hours a day – but that’s rather uncommon!) As with Improve Your Sight-reading!, the Improve Your Scales! method deconstructs the process and builds it up again through a series of games, exercises and of course, music. I call this style of teaching ‘Simultaneous Learning’; you can read more about this approach in subsequent articles and in my books Improve Your Teaching! and Teaching Beginners.
Moving away from teaching, composing and writing, I still find time to fit in a lot of playing. I play regularly with an opera orchestra, but my real passion is chamber music and I try to indulge my love for playing clarinet quintets, wind quintets and octets, and whatever else I can, as often as possible. In addition, I have for many years run the Stowe Woodwind Workshop – a specialist wind chamber music course for highly talented young players from all over the country. Two of my most fond memories are in fact related to performing. At the Academy I had the great honour of playing the Lutoslawski Dance Preludes for the composer himself, and the signed copy I have from the day is one of my most prized possessions. The second is from one of my many concerts at Stowe, which took place in the spectacular State Music Room. The room was completed in about 1781; much of the exquisite wall paintings and other decorations were carried out by the Italian artist Vincenzo Valdre. Valdre was responsible for painting sets for operatic productions in London and abroad (it is said that he was a particular champion of Handel’s operas) so he was no stranger to musical images, and the room is full of them. In addition, Stowe has been host to a considerable number of distinguished musicians over the years – one of the first may have been Handel himself! Since then, the music room has hosted many important musicians, among them the great British clarinettist Frederick Thurston. All would have discovered what a joy it is to play in, with a perfect acoustic and a sense of history that pours out of every corner! But the one performance I would like to highlight was an all Mozart programme; the Quintet for Piano and four winds (a work that Mozart considered as among his most treasured), and the wonderful Serenade in Eb for wind octet. Each of the four principal players had chosen a pupil to play second in the octet. It was a first for our pupils, of whom the youngest (my pupil) was 14. As part of a summer Chamber Music series our audiences were used to the highest standard, but on this occasion the exchange of musical ideas was wonderfully refreshing. The buzz before the concert was particularly effervescent; the Quintet is always a joy to play, but it was in the second half, when we played the Octet, that the room seemed to play its part in creating a truly memorable occasion.
In fact, as I write this, I am coming to my last couple of weeks of teaching at Stowe. I have made the very difficult decision to see what it is like out there in the big wide world of the freelance musician! But I have much to do, much to write and much to say – it is a time of considerable apprehension but also much excitement, and I very much look forward to what the future has in store.