Robin Stevens (b.1958)
Chasing Shadows
Clarinet Quintet (2019-20)
Obsession for double bass and piano (2015)
Fantasy Trio for flute/piccolo, guitar and cello (2009)
Chasing Shadows for double bass and piano (2015)
Romantic Fantasy for flute/piccolo, clarinet, string quartet and harp (2010)
rec. 2021-22, Stockport and Manchester, UK
Divine Art DDA25236 [79]
Robin Stevens is of Welsh blood but grew up in the English South-West. His academic progression as a musician can be traced through Manchester and Birmingham. He gave a performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Dartington Orchestra when he was sixteen. Up until 1990 he was making a productive career in music but M.E., from which he has since recovered, put paid to things. That said, composition and teaching have continued. A committed Christian, he is involved in church music, is a dedicated cyclist and, as he himself writes, Christendom’s “most reluctant bachelor despite his best efforts”. A family legacy in 2018 was the fuel for plans for the recording of all his major compositions.
The principal work here, Clarinet Quintet, is in four movements. As a medium this instrumental spec raises lyric expectations. These are handsomely met by Stevens in the first movement. This exudes English pastoral lyricism and an irresistible melancholy over a 13-minute time-span. The Scherzo flickers with eldritch life as well as more innocent chuckles. The following Adagio is a mesmerising Amberley Wild-Brooks-style essay but with curdling cross-currents as if from Bernard van Dieren. A jovial Finale is busy and lighter-hearted with an occasional jazzy inflection. The quintet ends on a typically British sun-drenched chord. As a work it is not that far remote from the much shorter quintet by Herbert Howells.
The Quintet is a prelude to very different experiences awaiting you in the other four works here. They are perhaps flagged somewhat more explicitly in the wild and woolly finale of the quintet. The two single-movement works for double bass and piano are from 2015. They flicker with life. Obsession, which opens with finger snaps and claps, includes a neon-lit lyrical theme with a touch of jazz and staggered note progressions in the background. The Fantasy Trio mixes guitar, flute and cello. It’s a very peculiar confection, incorporating passages that are coldly surreal. The Romantic Fantasy is mercurial; part frank delight and part suffused with the language of modernity. Gallic impressionistic voices are also to be heard. It is the most sensual of the five works here.
We must look forward, with some hope, to recordings of his other more resource-demanding works: Te Deum for soli, choir and orchestra, Mourning into Dancing for orchestra, Brass Odyssey for brass band and concertos for each of bassoon, cello and viola.
There are satisfyingly full booklet-notes on each work by the composer. A composer profile and essays on each of the works completes the picture.
Robin Stevens’ music has found a home with Divine Art. He has already had three CDs with them: DDA25217 cello/piano; DDA25203 string quartets; DDA25194 Prevailing Winds.
Rob Barnett
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Performers
Rosa Campos (clarinet); Any Yule (flute); Craig Ogden (guitar); Clifford Lantaff (harp); Sophie Rosa, Katie Stillman, Rosemary Attree (violins); Alastair Vennart, Christine Anderson (violas); Nicholas Trygstad (cello); Alexander Jones (double bass); David Jones (piano)
