Fitzwilliam String Quartet
Mandy Burvill clarinet
Jonathan Small oboe
DIVINE ART ddx 21105
This disc includes five examples of Ian Stephens’ chamber music. The first three works use existing musical material. The Celtic Elegy is one of a set of Three Miniatures for clarinet and cello and is inspired by the Irish folksong ‘She moved through the fair’.
There are a number of arrangements of this song for voice and piano, notably by Herbert Hughes, but it usually sounds most effective when sung unaccompanied. The use of two single line instruments captures the same spareness of the unaccompanied voice and while the source of the composer’s inspiration is detectable, the piece cannot be regarded as in any way derivative. Of particular interest is Stephens’ use of ornamentation and drones, which indicates the influence of the bagpipes.
The next two works are described as linked, being written in memory of Rosalind and Brian Richards. Commissioned by their daughters, the composer was asked to commemorate their parents who were both keen and accomplished amateur musicians. Springhead Echoes takes its title from the house in which Rosalind Richards was born and to which she retired. As she was a violinist, the composer asked for guidance as to any favourite pieces to which he might refer, and from a number of possibilities, he chose Brahms’s Violin Sonata No.1 in G major.
As with the Celtic Elegy, Stephens approaches the pre-existing material with both skill and delicacy, and in a manner which tends to demonstrate his individuality as a composer, rather than any suggestion of artistic infirmity which can be a risk when including the work of another.
In the case of the Clarinet Quintet, Stephens was given a number of suggestions as to what favourite pieces of Brian Richards to which he might allude and chose the Prisoner’s Chorus from Fidelio. This permeates all three movements of the Quintet, and twice the Brahms theme form Springhead Echoes is stated which forms the link between the two works.
The string quartet North Country takes the folk tune The Oak and the Ash as its starting point and is another demonstration of the composer’s skill in effectively making existing material his own. This also true of the Oboe Quintet, the most substantial of the works included here, at a duration of 23 minutes, in three movements of almost equal length. Here Stephens uses the chorale Ich habe genug.
In the cantata by Bach based on it there is a prominent part for the oboe and the dedicatees were both keen amateur oboists. All the works clearly show the composer’s ability to write idiomatically for the instruments he chooses. There is both passion and lyricism in the writing and the music is both contemporary and yet grounded in the best tradition of British chamber music.
Review by Martyn Strachan