skip to Main Content

An engaging new concerto

BBC Radio 3 Record Review, Andrew McGregor

20:26
Now when composer Mark Boden wrote a new concerto for clarinettist Robert Plane, it was a sporting enthusiasm they shared that propelled the piece: long distance running. So the concerto’s overall form is loosely based on the physiology of marathon running, beginning with ‘Adrenaline’.

20:46
First movement ‘Adrenaline’ from Mark Boden’s Clarinet Concerto is played.

26:47
‘Adrenaline’, overflowing with the nervous excitement and rhythmic energy of a marathon runner — the opening of the Clarinet Concerto by Mark Boden written for Robert Plane, who you heard there with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Jeffrey Patterson. And after that adrenal rush, we’re taken through ‘Refuelling’ with its spikes of energy; then the dreamlike state achieved, they tell us, at about 16 miles or so when things can get tough and you ask why you’re doing it at all; then ‘Hypertension’, and the rush to the finish line: elation and exhaustion.

It’s an engaging new concerto I think.

All of these pieces are commissions for Plane. Huw Watkins ‘Four Fables’ with the Gould Piano Trio are lovely things: a set of sensual, abstract tales inspired by Robert Schumann’s fairytales. The album’s called ‘Isotonic’, after the Boden concerto’s second movement, it’s new from Resonus Classics.

You may also like to see...
The players were especially alert to dynamic shading

Musical Opinion, Paul Conway

Reawakened
Plane has magisterial control of his instrument

British Music Society, Geoffrey Atkinson

Reawakened
They’re real gems

BBC Radio 3 Record Review, Andrew McGregor

Best Re-Issue

Classic FM, David Mellor

Utterly beguiling

The Westmorland Gazette, Ian Jones

Wistful beauty

The Times, Anna Picard

Afternoon Concert
Very smooth and subtle and deeply musical

BBC Radio 3, Kate Molleson

Unleashed with a controlled power by these fine musicians

The Scotsman, Susan Nickalls

Robert Plane
Threw himself into his athletic lines with glee and abandon
Plane’s tireless virtuosity

The Guardian, Rian Evans

Robert Plane Contrasts - Impressions Of Hungary
It's a little gem

The Guardian, Erica Jeal 

Robert Plane
A Perfect Partnership at the Ilkley Concert Club

Sacconi Quartet and Robert Plane at the King’s Hall, Chris Skidmore

Robert Plane gives a very fine reading [of Finzi Clarinet Concerto] for Naxos

From “Which is the best recording of Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto?” by Patrick Rucker, 14th July 2016

Robert Plane, Philip Dukes and Huw Watkins – unerring control

The Guardian, Rian Evans

A perfect balance of structural exactitude and lyricism – Gould Trio with clarinettist Robert Plane

The Guardian, Rian Evans

Older Reviews
Delectable soloist

International Record Review

Plane's readings are superb

Gramophone

First-class

Fanfare

Lyrical sweeps of phrasing in an immaculate performance

BBC, Andrew McGregor 

Back To Top
05/12/2023