Clarinettist Peter Cigleris is adding another gem to the SOMM catalogue less than a year after the release of his Clarinet Concertos (with symphonic band) [SOMMCD 0705, October 2025], which featured two world-premiere recordings and was roundly praised by Gramophone's Guy Rickards: "Cigleris is possessed of a beautifully mellifluous tone. A hugely varied, enjoyable programme, then, superbly played and recorded; enjoy!" For this release, Cigleris again offers concertante works, and again two first-ever recordings, but here the tutti forces, rather than winds, are the luminous strings of the London Mozart Players led by John Andrews. The trio of composers is British, and along with Gerald Finzi, whose Clarinet Concerto is justly beloved, come two others keenly deserving of the light this recording sheds on their music. The three works, all composed in the late 40s, are bound together by the common thread of the eminent English clarinettist Frederick Thurston (1901-1953). Denis ApIvor (1916-2004), born in Ireland to Welsh parents, was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford and then at Hereford Cathedral, where he also studied clarinet, piano and organ. As a teenaged medical student he heard the English premiere of Wozzeck under Sir Adrian Boult and his musical inspiration was renewed, leading to private composition lessons with Patrick Hadley and Alan Rawsthorne. While there is a later version of his Concertante for clarinet orchestrated for an ensemble featuring full strings, harp and celesta, Peter Cigleris opens this album with ApIvor's original chamber version for piano and two percussionists (one on timpani). This early work was conceived during the composer's wartime posting to India, and the premiere (with Frederick Thurston) was given in London after two years of peace, a repeat performance going out live on the BBC Third Programme on 27 January 1948. This recording, the work's first, shows an already impressive thread of musical argument and masterly writing from a 30-year old ApIvor, who would reach the peak of his success some eight years later with his score for the Royal Ballet's Lorca-inspired Blood Wedding. Many who know the name Freda Swain (1902-1985) will think of pedagogical piano solos and be surprised to learn of the Portsmouth native's catalogue of 450 or so serious works including large-scale operatic, orchestral and concertante music as well as varied chamber pieces, all regrettably neglected for too long. Presented here in it's premiere recording, Swain's "Lumine naturi" Concertino for Clarinet is an expressive work in language that draws on tonality yet is highly individual and sweepingly melodic. The genre-title's Italian diminutive belies concerto-worthy length (24 mins) and thematic substance. Each movement bears an epigraph by Algernon Blackwood evoking an ultra-vivid natural scene, hence the Latin epithet: "By the Light of Nature". Though Swain never published the work, it is likely that the tutti of string orchestra anchored by a lone horn accompanies a clarinet part intended for Frederick Thurston, a frequent collaborator and the dedicatee of her Rhapsody for clarinet and piano. Thurston did play the premiere of Gerald Finzi's (1901-1956) Concerto for Clarinet and Strings at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival on 9 September 1949, and the masterpiece has deservedly become the composer's most frequently heard concert work.

In September 2013, in NYC, Richard Dunn conducted the Palisades Baroque in all nine Telemann concerti for horn(s) and strings, with soloist R. J. Kelley performing on a baroque horn. Many of Telemann's horn works are a kind of hybrid. Some, called "concerto," show elements of a suite, while some show elements of both chamber music and orchestral music at the same time. In their selection, they included TWV 43: F8, a composition resembling chamber music but with a solo-tutti indication, and excluded others called "concertos", but in reality are either a suite concertante or chamber music.

This is one of the "new" Lyritas, in the sense that the recordings on this CD have never been issued before, even though they were made thirteen years ago. Though it’s a matter for regret that the recordings have lain in the vaults for so long it’s cause for unqualified rejoicing that such a delightful collection, all in sparkling performances, should now be available.

David Pyatt is an outstanding young British musician. I recall his victory in the BBC Young Musician of the year competition in 1988. At that time he was aged only 14 – he’d only taken up the horn six years earlier, I believe. He has since gone on to build a highly successful solo career, combining that with the post of Principal Horn in the London Philharmonic Orchestra, an assignment that he took up in the 1998/9 season.

All the works included here, with the exception of Ruth Gipps’s concerto were closely associated with the great Dennis Brain. I’m sure he played all of them superbly – he gave the premières of the Jacob, Arnold and Bowen works - but it’s hard to imagine stronger advocacy than all the pieces receive from David Pyatt. He’s recorded relatively closely, though not aggressively so, and not in such a way as to eclipse the consistently interesting orchestral parts. The closeness of the balance allows us to appreciate to the full his rich, round, golden tone as well as his seemingly effortless technique. This is, in short a superb demonstration of horn playing. There are other links within the programme too, besides the "Brain factor". For example, both Malcolm Arnold and Ruth Gipps were pupils of Gordon Jacob and the first broadcast performance of the Gipps concerto was given, in 1982, by Frank Lloyd, David Pyatt’s own teacher.

The concerto by Ruth Gipps seems to me to be the most serious of the pieces on this disc – not that any of them is exactly frivolous. She wrote it for her son, who gave the first performance. The first movement offers the soloist frequent opportunities for virtuosity but it’s predominantly a thoughtful movement. Unusually the middle movement is not slow in tempo; instead it’s a scherzo, featuring what Lewis Foreman memorably describes as a "thistledown tune". There’s a vivacious start to the finale but before long we reach a more lyrical and pensive section and this music alternates thereafter with livelier episodes. The accompaniment to this concerto features the fullest orchestration of the four and the scoring is consistently resourceful and interesting. Nowhere is this more apparent that in the short passage in the finale that Lewis Foreman highlights in his notes. Here, beginning at 4:30, the soloist duets with the celesta in a most imaginative and unusual piece of scoring. Like its companions on the disc this concerto cries out to be heard more often and David Pyatt is a splendid advocate for it.

He’s no less admirable in the splendid concerto by York Bowen, himself a horn player. The more I hear of Bowen’s music the more I like it and the more I marvel at its neglect. This is an inventive and tremendously enjoyable work in which a short, reflective slow movement catches the listener’s attention. The finale is cast mainly in a lively frame of mind but the romantic in York Bowen can’t resist pausing along the way for a lovely middle section in a slower tempo – and thank goodness for it.

Malcolm Arnold’s concerto is probably the best known of these concertos. Another work inspired by Dennis Brain, he gave its first performance at the Cheltenham Festival in July 1957, just a matter of weeks before his tragic and untimely death. Arnold, himself an orchestral trumpeter and therefore well versed in brass instruments, appears to write with complete understanding not just of the solo instrument but of the personality for whom he had written the work. The main material of the central slow movement is a nostalgic slow waltz that David Pyatt clearly relishes and which offers a few moments of relative repose before the headlong virtuosity of the finale.

The Gordon Jacob concerto is a delight from start to finish. The first movement frequently has the strings playing in motor rhythms but over the top of this material the soloist has interesting and lively music. There’s a substantial and lovely lyrical core to this movement and a demanding cadenza (from 7:20). The slow movement is a wonderfully atmospheric nocturne, which is imbued with a fine sense of lyrical repose. Pyatt is most eloquent here. Most of the time the finale dances along giving the soloist ample opportunity for display but there are some disarming lyrical stretches too.

This generously filled disc concludes with an encore in the shape of Hunter’s Moon. by Gilbert Vinter. This wasn’t written for Dennis Brain but he took it up towards the end of his life as something of a party piece. I hadn’t encountered it before and I found it most engaging. The outer sections, which contain a bouncy little march, frame a gorgeous cantabile central section. The whole piece breathes the atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I enjoyed the Vinter piece, but then I enjoyed the whole disc immensely. The music is of high quality and the standard of performance is consistently superb. In this last comment I include not just the marvellous solo playing of David Pyatt but also the fine support given to him by Nicholas Braithwaite and the LPO. The recorded sound is first rate and Lewis Foreman’s authoritative and enthusiastic notes are a model of their kind. For sheer listening pleasure this is one of the best discs to have come my way for a long time.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

Following his acclaimed recording of sonatas by contemporaries of Beethoven, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet further celebrates the great composers’ anniversary year with this set of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos. Electing to direct the Swedish Chamber orchestra from the keyboard, Jean-Efflam writes: ‘To play a concerto under a conductor who shares and enriches one’s vision of the work concerned is one of the greatest joys in the life of a soloist. Nevertheless, one can also admit that some aspects of performing without a conductor may prove advantageous. Rehearsal time is generally speaking made longer by the process of working out the different protocol of gestures from the soloist and the leader in coordinating the ensemble playing. As this work proceeds a creative bond is forged, resulting in an artistic osmosis, a common vision of the work, in which compromise has no place. For the pianist there is also the delight of appearing face to face with the entire orchestra, in direct visual communication, the musicians perhaps more likely to take personal initiatives, thus multiplying the pleasure of a genuine participation, dialogue, and musical exchange.’ The Cadenzas used in this recording are all Beethoven’s, from the set that he wrote-out in 1809, and so are contemporaneous with the Fifth Concerto.

REVIEW:

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's interpretations are distinctive in several respects and succeeds in standing out from the crowd. The Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, has a straightforward slow movement quite unlike the stomp fests that have become routine, but the subtlety and rhythmic complexity of Bavouzet's solos in the outer movements is absorbing. In the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor"), Bavouzet unleashes the full ringing tone of his unusual piano, and he manages the trick of getting a really exciting, forward-moving reading of this work with a small group. With fine engineering support from a small university auditorium in Sweden, Bavouzet delivers a Beethoven concerto cycle that's worth listeners' investment of time and money.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)