Mark Simpson

MARK SIMPSON PRISM Mark Simpson clarinet and basset clarinet Ian Buckle piano Music by Gary Carpenter • Kenneth Hesketh • Gavin Higgins David Horne • Emily Howard • Patrick Nunn • Stephen Pratt Mark Simpson • Mark-Anthony Turnage 1 GARY CARPENTER MARKING TIME 8’36 PRISM for basset clarinet and piano Mark Simpson clarinet and basset clarinet 2 KENNETH HESKETH POINT FORMS (after Kandinsky) 11’35 Ian Buckle piano for basset clarinet and piano GAVIN HIGGINS THREE BROKEN LOVE SONGS 12’24 for basset clarinet and piano 3 ‘...Two bottles of wine later...’ 4’18 4 ‘Three’s a crowd’ 3’57 5 Love Hurts 4’09 6 EMILY HOWARD MASQUERADE 6’03 for basset clarinet and piano 7 DAVID HORNE CHIME 9’40 for basset clarinet and piano 8 PATRICK NUNN PRISM 8’27 for basset clarinet and piano STEPHEN PRATT SHORT SCORE 10’04 for clarinet and piano 9 I 3’01 10 II Playful, fast! 1’28 11 III 3’36 12 IV With abandon! 1’59 13 MARK SIMPSON LOV(ESCAPE) 3’42 for clarinet and piano 14 MARK-ANTHONY TURNAGE CRADLE SONG 3’28 for clarinet and piano Total timing 74’51 3 Photo: David Lefeber PRISM: WORKS FOR CLARINET AND BASSET CLARINET NOTE BY MARK SIMPSON The basset clarinet came into existence through the collaboration between players and musicologists rediscovering the original form of the Mozart Anton Stadler and Austrian clarinet maker Theodor Lotz. Together they Concerto for basset clarinet. In England, Alan Hacker – founder member of worked on a number of variations which extended the clarinet’s range by a the Fires of London – was at the forefront of this renaissance, with Antony major third to written low C (concert A below the C below middle C) though Pay. Later developing the instrument and performing editions for it. But despite this was then known as a ‘bass-clarinet’ rather than a ‘basset’; it was for this the enthusiasm for performances of Mozart’s Concerto and Quintet on the instrument that Mozart wrote his concerto and quintet. However, like many basset clarinet, there was little interest from contemporary composers and instruments developed and experimented with during the seventeenth and players in the commissioning of new music. A few works were written for it early eighteenth centuries the basset clarinet was to suffer under the hands of by Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and Antony Gilbert – plus a later codifying techniques which made for ease of playing and composing. With appearance in Thomas Adès’s Chamber Symphony Op.2, which began life the appearance of an article in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1808 as a basset clarinet concerto. However, the attitude of many players towards by Christian Freidrich Michaelis clearly stating preferences for using B-flat the instrument, combined with the dearth of repertoire, saw history repeat and A clarinet instead of the then usual C clarinet, the choice of clarinet itself – and once again, the basset clarinet paled into the background. used in performance gradually became standardized, and the basset clarinet fell out of fashion; publishers would choose the versions most accessible to players, and thus most likely to be performed. This eventually led to its rapid When I was asked to perform Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in 2008 with the demise in the early nineteenth century. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, it was expected that I would play the work on a modern-day basset clarinet: this much had been achieved by the These factors, along with the loss of the original manuscript of Mozart’s 60s revival. Having purchased one and used it in performance, I wasn’t Clarinet Concerto, and its subsequent publication for soprano clarinet in A, happy to leave it sat idly gathering dust in its case. In my eyes the basset prevented the proliferation of the use of the basset clarinet throughout clarinet is an exciting enhancement of the standard soprano clarinet, and its Europe during the last decades of the eighteenth century. The instrument lay logical development: its lower range gives it a subtler and richer sonority than dormant for nearly two centuries until its revival in the 1960s and 70s by the soprano clarinet. 4 5 GARY CARPENTER MARKING TIME Marking Time was first performed by Mark Simpson The works on this disc are a culmination of five years of actively working with and David Horne at the Wales Millennium Centre, and commissioning composers. My aim during this period was to develop the Cardiff on 11 May 2008, and commissioned by the repertoire for the basset clarinet, and also provide a platform for composers BBC Performing Arts Fund. in whose work I was interested and believed in; I was able to develop these It was written for Mark Simpson’s guest performance Carpenter Photo: Lydia relationships through the opportunities that followed my winning BBC Young as the outgoing BBC Young Musician of the Year in GARY CARPENTER studied Musician of the Year in 2006. The pioneering work of the RLPO’s Ensemble 2008: this slot traditionally ‘marks the time’ between composition with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. He has lived 10:10 in Liverpool introduced me to most, if not all of the composers featured the final performances and the announcement of the in Holland and Germany and has on this disc. results – the time when performances are marked. So written music-theatre, and ballets as I was mindful of the conflicting thoughts going well as much concert music. Arranger- through the competitors’ minds, and the degree to orchestrator on stage shows and films In 1809 Spohr wrote the following in the Introduction to the first edition of his – including the original Wicker Man – which lives would be transformed a few minutes Op.26 C minor Concerto for Clarinet. It seems a fitting tribute to an he won the British Clavichord Society hence. Composition Competition in 2004 and instrument strangely experiencing its second renaissance today, and has a 2006 British Composer Award with resonances for the future of basset clarinet repertoire: Transitions are at the heart of Marking Time. Azaleas. His CD Die Flimmerkiste has Composers may get from section to section by been released by NMC. gradual transformation or (in my case at least) direct “I want to finish with some remarks that show my wish to give such a Recent works include 1,000,000 Tiny ‘jump cut’. I was therefore fascinated by a transition Operas About Britain (2010), Closing beautiful instrument additional attention. This will only happen if our strategy employed by Bruckner in his Symphony Time (2008), and Doubles for oboe, great composers, as is already happening, give it constant attention, No.2: silence. It wasn’t the silence per se that held clarinet and wind orchestra (2009), with Fred and Ginger (LSO/ Daniel time and diligence, and give players good concertos and other solos; my imagination, but the stasis; and this finds its way Harding) and a Bassoon Concerto but it would also increase the possibilities even more (especially for into Marking Time, in the form of the sustained single (RLPO/ Vasily Petrenko) in 2011. amateurs) if they use it more often as an instrument for accompaniment, notes that permeate it – both within the texture and at Gary is Visiting Professor in especially with the piano, than has been the case up to now.” key transitional moments – as it moves from unstable Composition at the Royal Northern to, finally, stable. College of Music and a professor of composition at the Royal Academy of © 2011 Mark Simpson GC Music. 6 7 KENNETH HESKETH POINT FORMS GAVIN HIGGINS THREE BROKEN LOVE SONGS Point forms was suggested by a group of five I ‘...Three Bottles of Wine Later...’ Born in Gloucestershire in 1983, GAVIN diagrams found in Wassily Kandinsky’s book Point and II ‘Three’s a Crowd’ HIGGINS grew up in the Forest of Dean, beginning his musical life in the local brass Line to Plane. Many explanations of the geometric III Love Hurts band. Gavin studied at Chethams School of shapes, including Kandinsky’s use of the words Music, the Royal Northern College of Music Three Broken Love Songs is a set of three vividly ‘stippled’, ‘sprayed’ and ‘compact’ suggested musical and the Royal College of Music (supported contrasting pieces that are linked dramatically, ways to amass textures; line development and by the AHRC and Douglas and Hilda each exploring an alternative side to love. The Simmonds Awards) where his tutors manipulation, for example by the interleaving of one Photo: Mark McNulty work is, if you like, a journey through a failed included Gary Carpenter and Ken Hesketh. idea temporarily intertwined with a previous one, allow After studying at the Royal College of relationship: a modern day love story without the Gavin has written music for leading UK the form to determine its own organic development. Music, at Tanglewood (with Henri fairytale ending. orchestras and ensembles: his works Dutilleux) and the University of include Rage Dances for members of the In writing for the specific quality of the basset Michigan, KENNETH HESKETH was Three Broken Love Songs was commissioned by London Philharmonic Orchestra, Dancing at clarinet, which extends the pitch range of the normal awarded a scholarship from the Mark Simpson, with the support of the RVW the Edge of Hell for the BBC Symphony A clarinet, the structure of the piece allows various Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, at the Orchestra and While Time Quietly Kills Trust. timbres and extended effects to come to prominence behest of Sir Simon Rattle. He was Them for the Manchester Camerata. Other New Music Fellow at Kettle’s Yard, commissions include Urban Fairy Tales as mood and momentum change.

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