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…The masterly Clarinet Sonata, Howells’s last major chamber work, was completed in 1946. The dedicatee was Frederick Thurston, and the wonderfully idiomatic 1980 recording by his wife and pupil Thea King has certainly stood the test of time.
“Robert Plane’s poetic account is possibly finer still, with its entrancing poise and liquid tone. Plane shines, too, in the coquettish 1946 miniature A Near-Minuet (possibly conceived as a centrepiece for the Sonata) and sublime Rhapsodic Quintet from 1919…
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