For three decades the English composer Nigel Clarke (b. 1960) has worked in close collaboration with the violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved and Longbow, Sheppard Skærved’s...

For three decades the English composer Nigel Clarke (b. 1960) has worked in close collaboration with the violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved and Longbow, Sheppard Skærved’s virtuoso thirteen-member string ensemble. Clarke’s engaging and energetic music often takes its cue from a dramatic or poetic impulse. Here it features two tributes to Edith Cavell, the British nurse shot in the First World War, one for solo violin, the other for the unusual combination of flugelhorn and strings; two of the other works here are musical portraits of the town of Dover, in the south-east of England, with white cliffs made famous in Vera Lynn’s wartime song. Nigel Clarke is Visiting Composer to Middle Tennessee State University Bands and has a long engagement with the symphonic wind-band movement in American universities.

REVIEW:

This is an unusual release for Toccata Classics, at least in my experience, which mainly includes lesser-known music for solo piano. But this material is fully within the philosophy of this wonderful British label, namely, the celebration of what they deem to be unduly neglected music. If that applies to Nigel Clarke, then hopefully the neglect will be corrected to some extent, for this is a fascinating and frequently enchanting music, presented, for the most part, with skill and conviction.

-- Fanfare