Nash Ensemble unveil new Alexander Goehr work at London's Wigmore Hall

12 March 2008

alexander geohr

MODERN MASTERS SHOW THEIR STYLE

Alexander Goehr's Clarinet Quintet ... is described by its composer as "austere" but by Goehr's ascetic standards, and as interpreted by Michael Collins and his excellent colleagues, it is a work of mellifluous expressivity verging on hedonism.

Barry Millington The Evening Standard

A clutch of premieres in the Nash Ensemble's Nash Inventions programme included works by some of the most respected figures in British music. Entirely new was Alexander Goehr's Clarinet Quintet, a tightly wound spring of a piece that holds the attention through intricate argument and recurrent motifs. Michael Collins was the eloquent interpreter of the clarinet part.

George Hall, The Guardian

ALEXANDER GOEHR

Clarinet Quintet (BBC Commission written for and premiered by the Nash Ensemble)

Wigmore Hall, 12 March 2008, 7.30pm

A richly varied programme of new British music includes the London premières of two of the Nash’s latest commissions – a string sextet by Mark-Anthony Turnage and a dramatic single-movement Horn Quintet by James MacMillan. Sir Harrison Birtwistle is represented by the instrumental component of his 2003/4 cycle of miniatures inspired by Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, while a text by Rilke is set (in English) in Colin Matthews’s The Island, a brand new Nash commission. The evening also includes the world première of a new clarinet quintet, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for Alexander Goehr’s 75th birthday, his first chamber work since his Piano Quintet written in 2000.

Nash Inventions

  • Turnage Returning, for string sextet* (London première)
  • Birtwistle Pieces from Orpheus Elegies for countertenor, oboe and harp
  • MacMillan Horn Quintet* (London première)
  • Alexander Goehr Clarinet Quintet* (BBC Radio 3 commission for the Nash Ensemble: world première)
  • Matthews The Island for soprano, alto flute, horn, piano, harp, viola and cello* (world première)

Nash Ensemble

  • Claire Booth (soprano)
  • Andrew Watts (countertenor)
  • Gareth Hulse (oboe)
  • Michael Collins (clarinet
  • Lucy Wakeford (harp)
  • Paul Watkins (conductor)

For more information on the music of Alexander Goehr