{"id":27175,"date":"2025-06-03T09:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T09:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/?page_id=27175"},"modified":"2025-10-13T11:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:28:08","slug":"hidden-away-for-90-years","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/en\/discover-chamber-music\/hidden-away-for-90-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden away for 90 years!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Jonathan Lyness<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe clarinet is by far the finest woodwind instrument\u201d.<\/em> Now, there\u2019s a controversial statement, if ever there was one! It\u2019s one I\u2019m sure the founder of Ensemble Cymru, clarinettist Peryn Clement-Evans, might entirely agree with! \ud83d\ude09 However, this statement is not from Peryn, nor from me (I hasten to add) but from the English composer John Ireland (1879 \u2013 1962). And his output testifies to his feelings on the matter; he wrote three pieces of chamber music involving wind instruments: a sextet for clarinet, horn and strings, a sonata for clarinet and piano, and a trio for clarinet, cello and piano, composed just prior to the outbreak of WWI.<\/p>\n\n\n

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by Herbert Lambert, bromide print, circa 1920<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was Mozart who, in the 1780s, became the first celebrated composer to introduce the new, modern clarinet into the string-dominated chamber music world with his Clarinet Quintet and his \u201cKegelstatt\u201d Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, performed by EC for April\u2019s concerts. These works were written especially for Mozart\u2019s clarinettist friend Anton Stadler. In 1861 the French composer Louise Farrenc composed a clarinet trio for her clarinet friend Adolphe Leroy (by this point the clarinet had developed considerably as an instrument since the days of Mozart). Thirty years later, in 1891, the composer Johannes Brahms had a clarinet friend as well! His name was Richard M\u00fchlfeld, for whom Brahms wrote four substantial chamber works including a clarinet quintet and a clarinet trio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Ireland, as a teenager, actually heard M\u00fchlfeld playing in a performance of Brahms\u2019s quintet at St. James\u2019 Hall, London in 1898. He was in awe of both M\u00fchlfeld and the potential of the clarinet as a chamber music instrument. A few years later, Brahms\u2019s clarinet trio was to provide the impetus for Ireland\u2019s trio, being for the same combo: clarinet, cello and piano (other clarinet trio combinations, such as Mozart\u2019s, are available). However, M\u00fchlfeld was no longer alive when Ireland wrote his trio, and it\u2019s not clear that poor Ireland had any particular clarinet friends of his own!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The opening of Ireland’s Clarinet Trio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Unlike Debussy and Vaughan Williams, whose music also features in Ensemble Cymru\u2019s June concerts, John Ireland was never hugely appreciated in his lifetime. His clarinet trio was first performed in June 1914, and possibly again in May 1915. Ireland then shelved it, and although he re-used some of the material, the original clarinet trio remained unperformed, unpublished and hidden for almost 90 years! It was painstakingly reconstructed by the Canadian clarinettist Stephen Fox from a disparate collection of incomplete material held at the British Library and given its first modern UK performance in 2007. It\u2019s a mature piece, dramatic and beautiful, strikingly original and typically \u2018Ireland-esque\u2019. And although it is clearly the work of a British composer, the influence of Debussy and Ravel abound. With its dual British and French sonorities, no doubt it would have gone down very well at one of Gregynog\u2019s inter-war music festivals, had the Davies sisters known of its existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musicians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Goodman \u2013 clarinet
Nia Harries \u2013 cello
Richard Ormrod \u2013 piano<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n