Charles Harford Lloyd (1849-1919)
Chamber Music for Clarinet
Metthew Nelson (clarinet)
Alexander Volpov (cello)
Chad Sloan (baritone)
Anna Petrova (piano)
rec. 2023/24, Comstock Concert Hall, Louisville, USA
Toccata Classics TOCC0768 [57]
Charles Harford Lloyd, whose birthdate nicely bisects those of the luminaries of the age in Britain, Hubert Parry (b.1848) and Charles Villiers Stanford (b.1852), won renown as organist of Gloucester Cathedral – he succeeded S.S. Wesley in the role – and as organiser of the Three Choirs Festivals of 1887 and 1890. His choral music is still relatively well-known as is his music for organ and both are occasionally recorded – you’ll find some pieces on the Priory label, for example. However, he did also write a small amount of music for chamber forces and this disc is the first to present the music for clarinet.
There’s only one major work to consider and that’s the Trio in B flat, composed around 1900 for the combination of clarinet, bassoon and piano. Recent arrangements include substitutions for both the bassoon and clarinet though the cello arrangement used here appears to be one made for the recording. Given his proficiency in choral music, I wasn’t necessarily expecting a similar level of expertise in this Trio but that’s what we get. It’s a 21-minute, three movement work rooted to a degree in the precedent of Brahms but showing a deft songfulness and attractive density of sound. The piano part is especially hard-working and makes demands on Anna Petrova that are, if anything, even more athletic than those made on clarinettist Matthew Nelson. The centrepiece of the sonata is the limpid, hymn-like slow movement, the clarinet spinning a long, seductive line, the cello responding with melancholic-lyric cantilever, the music getting progressively more passionate. The finale’s cocksure dance is graced with a well-sprung B section. This is welcome discovery heard in its premiere performance in this version.
The Duo Concertante is an earlier piece from 1886 and sports a fine array of tunes, deployed well – the performers here are attentive to dynamics – and the result is clever, clear and singable. Annette comes from the same year and is a song with clarinet obbligato and piano. The words are reprinted in the booklet. Baritone Chad Sloan joins Nelson and Petrova for this four-minute effusion, though I find his vibrato rather bleaty and he sounds, stylistically speaking, over-forceful. The Suite in the Olden Style (1914) is noted as a first recording but that’s not so, as Alessandro Travaglini and Christopher Howell recorded it in their album of ‘British Clarinet Music’ back in 2009. This Toccata version is rather more expansive, Nelson plays with more vibrato and the music emerges with its baroquerie and small-scaled whimsy intact.
Le Départ (pub.1920), for cello and piano is a warmly textured genre piece, gracefully played by Alexander Volpov. The Three Little Pieces are just that – brief pedagogic studies originally for the violin but here arranged for the clarinet that convey simple moods. They were published in the last year of Lloyd’s life. Idyll is more substantial than its title suggests though it’s only four minutes long and has elegantly nutritious material. It was also written for the violin but this transposition works well. The violin was also the original instrument for ‘Bon Voyage!’ but this deft little waltz survives the arrangement well.
The performers, as noted, prove adept exponents of these late-Victorian and Edwardian pieces.
Comstock Concert Hall in Louisville, Kentucky lacks warmth but has a compensating clarity. Toccata’s booklet notes are, as ever, admirably full both as to the details of Lloyd’s life and the nature of the chamber works performed.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
Clarinet Trio in B flat major (c.1900)
Duo Concertante (1886)
Annette (1886)
Suite in the Old Style (1914)
Le Départ (pub.1920)
Three Little Pieces (1919)
Idyll (1912)
‘Bon Voyage!’ (1887)
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