I’m not sure whether
these recordings have been released
before but they were made in September
1999 and are now released by Metier
with a comprehensive sleeve-note by
Christopher Fox, who, together with
Feldman taught in Darmstadt between
1984 and 1986. Feldman’s work, very
specifically titled Clarinet and String
Quartet preceded the two composers’
meeting by a year and was dedicated
to Alan Hacker, who premiered it with
the Brodsky Quartet that year in Newcastle.
It’s a work lasting
some three-quarters of an hour and therefore
not the same kind of animal as his more
extended chamber works. It’s also a
late work and focuses closely on clusters
and repetitions of intense concentration.
The specificity of the writing is reflected
in the ever-changing patterns Feldman
unfolds, ones that reappear with subtle
rhythmic changes. Sometimes there are
gaps in the texture and then the music
starts up again with renewed life; sometimes,
too, the clarinet takes on a more yearning,
personalised tone. The effect is one
of seamless-sounding change and an inevitability
of utterance.
Fox’s Clarinet Quintet
dates from almost a decade later. He
too uses repetitions and patterns, occasionally
slowing down for more refractive material.
The clarinet seems to have life both
inside and outside the quintet medium;
it takes hold of opportunities for solo
display whilst also weaving into the
unfolding textures of the quartet. Fox
ensures there are lots of timbral contrasts
and colour, some pizzicati too, though
the music remains essentially "quiet."
There is a falling motif for the string
quartet which Fox revisits in different
guises; real concentration of utterance
here in its thirteen minute span but
there is also a real sense of space
and vista. As it progresses, unlike
the Feldman, we find a growing stripping
down to the essentials.
Some might conjecture
that these two works share a rather
forbidding austerity but that’s actually
not the case. Patterns, reflections,
repetitions, colour and subtlety are
in attendance in both cases, whether
it’s the more extensive hypnosis of
Feldman or the more active localised
dramas of Fox.
Jonathan Woolf
Roger Heaton (clarinet) 
