Robert Simpson (1921-1997)
String Quartet in D major (1945)
Two Songs (1942)
Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano (1967)
Quintet for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet and Three Double Basses (1981)
Reviewed as a WAV download from a press preview
Toccata Classics TOCC0701 [71]

Any new Robert Simpson release is a cause for celebration. If it fills in some of the gaps left by Hyperion’s magnificent series dedicated to his music, it is doubly welcome. This one is brought to us courtesy of the indefatigable Robert Simpson Society and the endlessly inquisitive folks at Toccata Classics. (Society membership costs a mere £15, so if you love Simpson, they really should be your next port of call.)

The most significant addition to the Simpson discography is, at last, a recording of what must surely rank as the strangest work he ever penned – the Quintet for clarinet, bass clarinet and three double basses. Hyperion elected to record Simpson’s more user-friendly arrangement, where the three double basses are replaced with a string trio. The 1980s were a startlingly fertile period for the composer, and this Quintet, for all its seeming oddity, must rank as one of his finest. Now we get to hear what he originally had in mind. The stunning results make this performance worth the price of this disc alone.

It is now an almost unforgivable cliché to describe Simpson’s music in terms of astronomy, though I suspect he might have been rather indulgent in that regard. Yet I cannot resist likening the sonority of the double basses to the darkness of deep space. (According to the Robert Simpson Society newsletter, Simpson derived mischievous glee from the fact that the work begins with double basses playing harmonics above the clarinets.) It is also a marvellous example of how, even though Simpson’s music particularly in his later years was almost invariably austere, austerity does not preclude serenity. So remote does this new recording sound that the only meaningful astronomical comparison would be of some object in the Oort Cloud serenely making its way through the darkness, the sun a distant glimmer.

In musical terms, that serenity means an evenness of pulse throughout even during the faster middle sections. The clashes and tensions of the faster middle movement are like collisions between asteroids on their long orbits rather than the hand-wringing of more autobiographical music. This is another way of saying that they emerge with a sense of musical inevitability so characteristic of Simpson’s best work. When the pace seemingly slows again to adagio for the work’s closing section, we realise that we have been travelling at this tempo the whole time. There is a kind of stoic inscrutability to the music that seems to see transitory suffering as irrelevant compared to the things that really matter. Obviously, for Simpson one of those things that really matter was music.

The precision, effectiveness and imagination of Simpson’s scoring is often overlooked. A work like this, where the combination of instruments might have caused a lesser composer to tear out their hair in despair, allows us to hear all those qualities at their best. The first thing to be said is how beautiful this work is – dark and serene yes but also liquid and mellifluous as if it were a distant echo of Brahms’s writing for the instrument. If the violence of Simpson’s other work – and it can be titanically violent – has put you off in the past, then this dark pearl of a piece might persuade you more.

The Clarinet Triofrom 1967, for all its many moments of quiet beauty, is mostly Simpson at his abrasive best. This is one for the already convinced. It certainly bears the imprint of a difficult decade for the composer but one that, out of defiance, forged his unique voice. Part of that voice was stubborn resistance, audible here. Simpson, the finale announces, is not going to be distracted by notions of modernity or conservatism, but will keep on his own course. The effect is bracing but superbly energising. The calm of the Quintetis still far in the future but it is a product of the resolution of these struggles.

We also get a chance to hear Simpson the song writer. The two songs here are early works. Pleasant though they are, Simpson’s concentration on symphony and string quartet was hardly the world of song’s loss. They do provide an insight into Simpson’s unique melodic style, an aspect of his music often neglected in favour of his use of motifs.

A similar insight can be gained from the very early String Quartet in D major. There is an argument to be made that Simpson’s contribution to the string quartet was even more significant than that to the symphony, so hearing his first steps in the genre is deeply fascinating. Simpson’s passion for Nielsen and Bruckner has sometimes masked the centrality of Beethoven to his work. It is no surprise, then, that this composition – which he originally labelled a mere Exercise before being cajoled into renaming it a string quartet – abounds with a lively young mind’s responses to Beethoven’s quartets. Simpson’s understanding of Beethoven’s work ranks amongst the subtlest and most perceptive. Even as an undergraduate (this was written to secure his BA in music) he was already thinking deeply and with startling creativity about his mighty predecessor.

One thing that might surprise listeners who only know the works of Simpson’s maturity is how witty this music is. Long-time Simpson specialist Matthew Taylor in his excellent liner notes cite Beethoven’s Op.59/2 as an inspiration for the embryonic version of Simpson’s inimitable contrapuntal dynamism. I feel, however, that the spirit that presides over the piece is that of Beethoven’s Op.18 – Simpson, like Beethoven, aware of the giants who came before him but confident enough to have some fun with that legacy. That teeming invention was in time to grow more disciplined but it was never lost no matter how imposing the edifices to come might have seemed. Is this the voice of the true Simpson? Not yet, which is presumably why it was not made his No.1, but well on the way. It is a very satisfying work in its own right, and deeply fascinating for those of us who know and love where he took the string quartet next.

Far from being a sweeping-up of an assortment of oddities and curiosities, this disc contains important music, including one essential masterpiece. It is a measure of the esteem with which Simpson is held by musicians (even if in this music he was yet to achieve the reputation he deserves amongst the listening public) that there are so many starry names amongst the performers. Toccata’s performances and sound are up to the level of Hyperion’s pioneering series of recordings – in other words, the very best.

David McDade

Other review: Richard Hanlon (March 2025)

Performers
Emma Johnson (clarinet)
Raphael Wallfisch (cello)
John Lenehan (piano, Trio)
The Tippett Quartet
Eva-Maria Hartmann (soprano)
Cornelis Witthoefft (piano, songs)
Derek Hannigan (bass clarinet)
Will Duerden, Levi Andreassen, Daniil Margulis (double basses)

Recording data
Trio: 3 June 2021, St George’s Church, Harrow, UK
Quintet: 20 November 2023, St George’s Church, Harrow, UK
Quartet: 7 February 2023, Studio TQHQ, Ruislip, Middlesex, UK
Songs: 12 August 2024, Lehmann Studios, Stuttgart, Germany

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