Gerald Finzi
– Clarinet Concerto
Robert Plane, clarinet | Northern Sinfonia | Howard Griffiths, Conductor
Recommended Recording – Building a Library, CD Review, BBC Radio 3
Winner, Classic CD Best Concerto Recording 2000
Gramophone, Editor’s Choice’
‘Robert Plane gives a very fine reading for Naxos, playing with the Northern Sinfonia, of which he was principal clarinet at the time. His playing is fluent and purposeful, with plenty of character; he is suitably indignant at the close of the first movement and displays an emphatic chalumeau register in the second. He shades dynamics with great sensitivity and the rondo is wonderfully good-natured’
Patrick Rucker – Gramophone Magazine July 2016
‘But it is one of the merits of this exceptional performance that Robert Plane’s mellifluous playing is so perfectly suited to the clarinet’s role as peacemaker, while the Northern Sinfonia strings add the necessary edge when it is required.’
Anthony Burton – 1001 Classical Recordings you must hear before you die
‘..but the performance of the Finzi Clarinet Concerto which, for me, gets right to the heart is the excellent Robert Plane’s….sinuous and flexible.’
Building a Library, BBC Radio 3
‘His virtuoso command and clear fresh tone are most impressive, with clean, crisp definition…The slow movement brings a glorious performance, rapt and expansive, with hushed playing lovingly expressive. An outstanding bargain version.’
Gramophone 2001
This is an absolutely delightful programme which will be especially welcome to all lovers of English music. The playing throughout is first-class, with Robert Plane proving an excellent soloist able to exploit both the elegiac and virtuosic aspects of the music with equal success.’
BBC Music Magazine ***** 1998
