Lost and found, the remarkable story of Malcolm Arnold's Wind Quintet

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 2003 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.

When flipping through the Malcolm Arnold catalogue for some purpose of information gathering, my eye has often alighted on the following: 1942 Wind Quintet – Manuscript lost. Like most wind players, I love the Three Shanties and have played them many times. I’ve long wondered what this tantalising quintet, written just a few months before the Shanties, might be like. Therefore I could hardly contain my excitement when, in early October 2002, I had a phone call from Malcolm’s carer Anthony Day, who told me the quintet had been found and asked me to prepare it for publication. Having brought the manuscript home from Attleborough, I then embarked on some detective work in an attempt to piece together the story of the quintet since its composition, almost exactly 60 years ago. This is what I discovered...

Arnold completed the manuscript on December 20th 1942, when the Second World War was at its height. (Malcolm was fiercely anti-war: indeed he had shot himself in the foot to escape war service.) The quintet was written for the five principal wind players in the London Philharmonic Orchestra (the LPO, in which Malcolm himself was principal trumpet): Richard Adeney (flute); Michael Dobson (oboe); Stephen Waters (clarinet); Charles Gregory (horn) and George Alexandra (bassoon). It had been thought that they gave the first performance on June 7th 1943 at Trinity College of Music in London, but this cannot be confirmed. However on 8th August 1944, the LPO’s chairman Charles Gregory arranged to have the work broadcast by the BBC from their Bristol Overseas Service studios. The players settled down to a full day’s rehearsing when, quite unexpectedly, they were told that the broadcast was in fact to be that very day! Their plans for a long leisurely rehearsal became closer to ten minutes! A quick read-through, a few minutes practising the tricky bits – and then the red light went on. When it went off some fifteen minutes later, the players were unusually stressed, but relieved that the performance had not actually broken down. 

And now the plot thickens … The manuscript score and parts (written out by the composer himself) were then lent to the Dennis Brain Quintet – Gareth Morris, Leonard Brain, Stephen Waters, Dennis Brain and Cecil James. (Stephen Waters was the link between the two groups and had presumerably alerted the Brain Quintet to this new piece.) Then all went silent – no sight nor sound of the quintet until Jonathan Wortley – Stephen Waters’ executor, came across an interesting handwritten manuscript about two years after the death of the clarinettist. Nestling among some inconsequential music was the Arnold Quintet, minus the horn part. My friend, the clarinettist, teacher and biographer Pamela Weston not only knew about Stephen Waters, but also had coincidentally received some lessons from him during the war years. She remembers him as being a fine teacher and player but also as rather nervous, scatter-brained and slightly absent-minded. She recalls a bus journey they took together on one of those old red London buses with the pole on to which passengers can grasp as they got on and off. She recalls Stephen getting quite tangled up on this – his clarinet, clothes and indeed self, requiring the young Pamela to attempt to disentangle her teacher! I can only assume that, as librarian to the quintet (after perhaps Dennis had taken his part) Stephen put the work in a box for safe-keeping, and then completely forgot about it!

Typesetting the work – much of which I did myself – was tremendously exciting; gradually seeing the three movements come to life again. Many sonorities and musical ideas appear again in the Shanties and, although this is early Arnold, it will certainly be seen as a very important and significant work. The first movement is tuneful and full of those surprises Arnold loves to introduce in his music – to keep his audiences awake, as he once told me! Those of you who don’t know the early piano sonata (written a couple of months before this quintet) will learn much about his style from that fine work. There is no shortage of jazz-inspired ideas but they are always coloured by that Arnold edge. The second movement is a fiendish scherzo – full of amazing cross rhythms and of immense energy. The final movement is a March and the most emotionally charged. It is clearly very strongly anti-war, with severe and angry dissonances, mocking fanfares, angular and brutal melodic and rhythmic shapes.

As it happened, I had a quintet concert arranged for November 6th at Hartwell House, Oxford, so hastily altered the programme to include the first ‘revival’ performance of the quintet. After a few phone calls I was excited to discover that Richard Adeney, the flute player at that first performance and for whom Arnold wrote all his main flute works, was still very much alive and well. At the age of eighty-two the dapper and sprightly Richard was delighted to attend the performance and spoke to the audience with his memories of Malcolm and the work. Interestingly enough, he had no recollection of the Trinity College performance; but he did remember well that manic broadcast from Bristol! We will never be really sure whether that initial performance at Trinity ever did take place, which makes ours the first live performance – 60 years after the completion of the work.

Malcolm Arnold’s Wind Quintet is now available from Queen’s Temple Publications. It’s without doubt a major addition to the wind quintet repertoire and a very important musical re-discovery of recent times.

Looking backwards and forwards

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 2002 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA. 

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to receive an invite from Pamela Weston to a launch party for her new book Yesterday’s Clarinettists: a sequel. I picked up my teacher John Davies from his apartment in Kew and we drove down to the south coast. Surprisingly, the weather held up for us and together with the players Colin Bradbury, Paul Harvey, June Emerson (publisher) and others, we settled down to a wonderful lunch and chat. Among many other fascinating bits of information that emerged was the fact that Pamela’s mother and John’s father both played in the same orchestra in Eastbourne – they were virtual neighbours as children, though it was many years before they actually met!

Pamela’s book is full of gems. Being a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Henry Lazarus, one of my personal favourites concerns the great patriarch of English clarinet playing himself. In September 1872, Lazarus organised a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It was to be a concert ‘to enable all classes to enjoy music at exceedingly low prices.’ Indeed many of the tickets were priced at 3 pence. The punters certainly got their money’s worth – there was sufficient music in the programme to fill up two or three evenings by today’s standards!

Part of my work is as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. I also do quite a bit of ‘behind the scenes’ work and I’m presently involved in coordinating a new series of exams for young players which are to be called Music Medals. Within the state education system in the UK, Music Services provide lessons for anyone who wishes to take up an instrument. Owing to the numbers involved, a lot of pupils are taught in groups and in the hands of a skilful and imaginative teacher such teaching is both extremely effective and successful. This series of exams has been designed to provide structure to such teaching, and will include playing both solo and ensemble music and a choice of ‘musicianship’ tests: sight-reading or improvising a completion to a given musical idea. (This is very timely in view of the fact that the Government has recently stated that every child should have access to instrumental music lessons.) The Music Medals team have been commissioning various composers to write specially-dedicated ensemble music for use in these exams, and as a result some wonderful stuff has been popping through my letterbox. If nothing else, the repertoire for small ensembles will be greatly enhanced.

In this column I have previously mentioned ‘Unbeaten Tracks’ – a collection of new pieces that I have recently edited, featuring eight clarinet pieces by contemporary composers. The word ‘contemporary’ often conjures up images of incomprehensible rhythms, mutiphonics and extreme technical difficulties. In this volume (published by Faber Music) we’ve tried to put together works that are stimulating and engaging, whilst being completely approachable technically. None of the pieces use contemporary techniques as such (except a bit of key tapping!) but rather, each composer has used the opportunity to explore their own conception of melody at the start of the twenty-first century. In this way it makes for a particularly interesting ‘document’. Perhaps the most traditional sort of melody has been contributed by Christopher Gunning (composer of much music for television and film) and the most futuristic, by Lloyd Moore. The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe has written a charming miniature ‘Reef Singing’ and there is an effective Brittenesque March by Huw Watkins. For anyone interested in broadening their repertoire, this volume is well worth a look.
On a lighter note, I’m shortly off to South East Asia to give a series of workshops and classes. Before I go, my quintet has a recital in which we are including a rather whimsical piece of mine called The Unhappy Aardvark (for Wind Quintet plus narrator). We were to be joined by Bruce Boa as the narrator (perhaps best known for playing the part of the General in Star Wars!). Regrettably Bruce fell over last week and can’t walk at the moment. But he has arranged for a friend to take his place and that friend is the actor Shane Rimmer – star of three James Bond and two Superman movies, and voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds. I can’t wait!

Music fit for a Queen

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 2002 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA. 

Today is the Queen’s Golden Jubilee! The sun is shining; red, white and blue bunting adorns the front of houses and shops everywhere, and thousands have been sleeping in tents on the pavement overnight to catch a glimpse of the Queen as she rides past in her splendid golden carriage. I’ve just returned from giving a special Jubilee concert at one of England’s distinguished stately homes. It was a concert of music by composers who have had some connection with the second Elizabethan age, and included Walton’s Façade, some Elgar, Finzi and Richard Rodney Bennett (and I rather cheekily slipped in one of my own chamber pieces – a trio for flute, clarinet and piano). It’s interesting how we rely on music by such composers in putting together programmes for this kind of event. So much music written by contemporary composers, though of great value, remains elusive to your enthusiastic, but ‘non-specialist’, music-loving audience. But it’s not only the ‘non-specialists’ who are unfamiliar with this music – I wonder how many of us could really say we know any of the music of Oliver Knussen, Thomas Ades, George Benjamin, James Macmillan, Robin Holloway, or a host of other hard-working contemporary British composers? And regrettably I would have to include myself to a degree; but I am trying to broaden my knowledge and I do my best to listen and learn a couple of new works each week. I suppose it is still in the nature of things that we are both suspicious and wary of anything ‘new’ in the world of the creative arts. A great pity really. 

As part of the Jubilee celebrations, the Queen invited an audience of twelve thousand into her (evidently quite large!) garden for a concert of classical music. I was delighted that among some internationally-renowned names in the music world, my erstwhile pupil Julian Bliss had been asked to take part. This of course is wonderful for the clarinet world and my hope is that thousands of young people will identify with him and will wish to try their hand at playing the clarinet. Julian always communicates a tremendous sense of joy that his audience cannot fail to recognise. Here in the UK, many young people want to learn the guitar, drums, saxophone or vocals. I hope Julian will become something of a role model and inspire many to take up instruments that perhaps don’t have quite so much ‘street cred’ but are nevertheless providers of a great deal of potential and lasting pleasure. 

We have also recently experienced the bi-annual BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. As with all competitions, this event arouses strong feelings among the musical fraternity. The usual questions and dilemmas again present themselves – and we all have our own well-rehearsed points of view. But whatever we think, competitions are very much part of our culture. As long as we approach them with wisdom and circumspection they are ultimately valuable. As it was, the competition was won by a prodigious twelve-year-old violinist. But the wind section was represented by the young clarinettist Sarah Williamson – a name I’m sure we will be hearing much of over the years. Her performance of the Copland Concerto displayed immense colour, brilliance and imagination. In a way it’s a bold choice for such an event – the long lyrical opening movement is not perhaps ideal competition-winning fare. But Sarah is clearly not a musician to be compromised by such thoughts and she played it with immaculate control. The second movement was breathtaking in its dazzling technical command and breadth of musical colour. 

And finally, by the time you read this Pamela Weston’s two important books, Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past and More Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past will have been re-published by Emerson Edition. These are books that should be on every clarinet player’s shelf. And Pamela has just finished yet another volume entitled Yesterday’s Clarinettists: a sequel, which will be available by late July (also Emerson). Pamela tells me that she has included information on over 600 new names as well as new facts concerning over 400 of the players discussed in the first two volumes. Amazing!

A trip through time

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 June 2002 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA. 

I was having lunch with the clarinettist, teacher and biographer Pamela Weston a few weeks ago and our wide-ranging conversation turned, for a time, to the fascinating subject of clarinet dynasties. Consequently, for this letter, I thought I might consider my particular ‘dynasty’ and discover something of the historical background that has coloured and shaped my own approach to teaching and playing the clarinet.

I was taught by John Davies, who was Senior Professor of clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music in London for over forty years from 1951. John is a great teacher – his work is based on an understanding that education is all about ‘drawing out’ not ‘putting in’. His pupils are taught to think for themselves; to develop a flexible sound that is successful in chamber music, in an orchestral section, in jazz or as a classical soloist. He teaches his pupils to consider the broader picture and in so doing, develop a parallel interest and love of the other great creative arts – literature, painting and drama. He instils a confidence in his pupils, allowing them to embrace the highly-charged musical world without arrogance or superiority. His pupils number international soloists, generations of highly-distinguished orchestral and chamber music players and many fine teachers. 

John grew up at a time before the proliferation of recordings; at a time before our obsession with ‘sound’. Up until about the middle of the twentieth century, you simply played the clarinet; the sound was not cause for great debate and much soul-searching as it is now. John recalls that his teacher, George Anderson, didn’t devote much teaching time to sound; no attempt was made to make a particular kind of sound – you simply developed a clean and refined tone – there was no more to it than that. In John’s opinion, it was the growth of jazz that brought about the major development of interest and potential for sound quality. Most players of the time employed the more severe military embouchure and a reasonably narrow lay mouthpiece to produce the type of sound so beautifully encapsulated in the playing of the legendary Jack Thurston (a player for whom John has much regard). It was the jazz players who brought a new, slacker embouchure and consequently a wider sound and vibrato to their playing. The English player Reginald Kell brought such features to the ‘classical’ clarinet sound and in doing so, significantly changed the course of clarinet playing thereafter. The sound became a central ‘feature’; there was now a choice to be made. 

John was appointed to take over from his distinguished teacher George Anderson, who died that year, having devoted the final ten years of his life to his Academy students. Anderson was born in 1867 – Brahms had yet to write his Sonatas, and the great Weber works had been around for little over fifty years. He was principally an orchestral player and was to spend nearly forty years in the London Symphony Orchestra. He also played in the Scottish Orchestra, the Beecham Opera Company and the BBC Military Band. He gave one of the first performances of Coleridge-Taylor’s wonderful but sadly neglected Clarinet Quintet. He played on the Boehm system, which at the time was still quite a novelty. Pamela Weston writes that he is reputed to have made a sweet and delicate tone. John remembers that he took care of his pupils (for example, when John asked to be released early from a lesson owing to the birth of his son, after initial outrage Anderson soon relented and took John out for a celebratory lunch!). Among his other distinguished pupils number Georgina Dobree, Bernard Walton and indeed Pamela Weston had a number of lessons with him. 

Anderson was a pupil of the great nineteenth-century player Henry Lazarus who was born in London in 1815 – the year of the Battle of Waterloo and some months before Weber composed his Grand Duo. Lazarus was a military bandsman but clearly an exceptional player, both orchestrally and as a soloist. He was also an enthusiast, commissioning works and arrangements by living composers of the time and writing many showpieces himself. He also wrote one of the most influential tutors of the time: his New and Modern Method of 1881. Though long and comprehensive it is nevertheless, of its time, user-friendly and takes into account the need for cumulative learning (unlike one of my favourite contemporary clarinet methods that states ‘The student should commit to memory the fingerings and use of the keys before attempting to produce the sound – see diagrams.’ There follows about 8 pages of complex fingerings taking the beginner up to top C – 3 octaves above middle C!). Lazarus taught both at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music; he recommended the modern Boehm system (though never actually played it himself) and was clearly a great character. He lived for ninety years and his influence over clarinet playing in Britain in the twentieth century and beyond cannot be understated.

I’ve always believed it very important to have a sense of history – to know about one’s own time and the events and people that have shaped one’s own life. I often think of those words by the celebrated writer John Keats, ‘To know your past is to know yourself’. I always feel a great sense of history sitting with John Davies in his living room in south London, where, hanging on the wall, he has a signed picture of his teacher’s teacher – the great Henry Lazarus. It is at once humbling and a source of great energy.

Buried Treasure

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 2002 in The Clarinet Journal, the official publication of the ICA.

Regular readers will now know of my interest in discovering and promoting ‘buried treasures’ of the clarinet repertoire. I wonder how many know the name of the English composer Robin Milford? Milford was a contemporary of Gerald Finzi and his music is much in the same mould. Connected to a number of famous educational institutions, he began as a pupil at Rugby School (where the composer Arthur Bliss had studied previously), went on to the Royal College of Music where his teachers included Holst and Vaughan Williams, and later taught at Ludgrove and Downe House schools. But, since his death in 1959, his work has been largely forgotten. At this present time, there is only one Milford clarinet work in print: the Lyrical Movement written in 1948 for the clarinettist Alan Frank. Frank was editor at the Oxford University Press (OUP), and co-wrote the famous Thurston and Frank Clarinet Method. The Lyrical Movement, first published by OUP, subsequently went out of print and is now re-published by Thames Publishing. It is well worth a look; a delightful movement, rather sad and wistful but elegantly written for the instrument. In addition, in 1933 Milford wrote a Concertino for Clarinet and Strings but this, sadly, has been lost. The Phantasy Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet was also composed in 1933, and in 1948 a Trio for clarinet, cello and piano for Pauline Juler, a top clarinettist of the day.

As well as the Lyrical Movement I also knew of some lovely pieces for flute and piano so a year or two ago, I decided to undertake some research into Milford’s work. This research took me to the famous Bodleian Library in the heart of Oxford. The Bodleian own many of Milford’s manuscripts and I was very excited about what I might find there. It is a very grand and dusty place and before I was allowed in, I had to sign a document swearing never to burn the place down (yet another wonderful old Oxford University tradition!). It is an intimidating building. You don’t see any books or manuscripts – they are all kept well-hidden in deep vaults. You have to make a request, in writing, to the rather severe librarian, and, after a long wait, the item will finally be brought to you. But the long wait in that stark annex was well worth it! Among the manuscripts I asked to see was the Clarinet Quintet; twenty-four pages of neat pen-and-ink writing. The second page bears the interesting inscription, written in pencil in Milford’s hand, that ‘the material of this piece furnished me later with the 1st movement of my violin concerto’. (This particular work was written some four years later, but I suspect it has probably received few performances since its first under the baton of Clarence Raybould in 1938.) 

Milford’s closest living relative is his niece, Marion Milford. My friend Christopher (Kiffer) Finzi, Gerald’s son, knows her well and offered to contact her for me. It has taken about four years to do so! But, to my delight, a few weeks ago I received a letter from Kiffer saying that she was very pleased indeed to give my publishing company, Queen’s Temple Publications, permission to publish the Clarinet Quintet. The piece is somewhat rhapsodic in character and the clarinet writing is highly characteristic, and not too demanding. It begins ‘pp’ and ends ‘ppp’ but journeys through moments of great lyricism and drama. Alan Frank may have played it, but sadly he died a few years ago, and I can find no trace of any performance. Perhaps one of the educational establishments with which Milford was connected might be the venue for the ‘first’ performance, nearly seventy years after the Quintet’s composition! I hope clarinet players around the world will wish to explore this small but significant unknown musical treasure.

An eventful summer

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.