Cementing his status as a renowned champion of contemporary music, ‘Isotonic: Commissions for Clarinet’ is the latest addition to Robert Plane‘s extensive discography, due for release on Resonus Classics on 28th July.
The album features premiere recordings of four works written specially for Rob over the last 25 years including Clarinet Concertos by Mark David Boden and Diana Burrell, recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Geoffrey Patterson. Also included are Sarah Frances Jenkins’s Shivelight for clarinet and piano (with pianist Benjamin Frith) and Huw Watkins’s Four Fables, for which Rob is joined by long-time collaborators the Gould Piano Trio.
Mark David Boden’s Clarinet Concerto was composed in 2018 as a special commission for the 90th anniversary of BBCNOW, of which Rob was principal clarinettist at the time. The structure is loosely based on a marathon, long-distance running being a shared passion of Rob and Mark, and Rob gave the premiere with BBCNOW at BBC Hoddinott Hall in March 2019.
Diana Burrell’s Clarinet Concerto was commissioned by Hexham Abbey Festival in 1996, and Rob gave the premiere performance at the Festival in September that year with (the then) Northern Sinfonia and John Lubbock.
Sarah Frances Jenkins’s Shivelight for clarinet and piano was commissioned by Rob and the Gould Piano Trio for the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival (of which they are joint Artistic Directors) and premiered there in 2021.
Three years earlier, in celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Rob and the Goulds commissioned Huw Watkins’s Four Fables with co-commissioners Wigmore Hall, Swansea International Festival and the Three Choirs Festival. Since the premiere at the 2018 Three Choirs Festival, they have already given over twenty-five performances, including Wigmore Hall, Festivals and music societies throughout the UK, and a US premiere in Portland, Oregon, at the distinguished Friends of Chamber Music series.
Rob is very grateful for the support of the PRS Foundation, Vaughan Williams Foundation, RWCMD Research, the Ambache Charitable Trust, RNCM Research and the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of GB.
