BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976): Movements for a Clarinet Concerto (devised and orch. Colin Matthews [b.1946]), WILLIAM MATHIAS (1934-1992): Clarinet Concerto, Op. 68, ARNOLD COOKE (1906-2005): Concerto No. 1 for Clarinet and String Orchestra, GERALD FINZI (1901-1956): 5 Bagatelles, Op. 23a (arr. Lawrence Ashmore [1928-2013]).

Description: In 1989 Colin Matthews orchestrated Britten’s 1941-42 sketches for a concerto planned for Benny Goodman; this six-minute piece was recorded by Hyperion in 1992. In 2007 he arranged Britten’s two-piano Mazurka elegiaca of 1941 for a slow movement and then adapted a sketch from 1942-43 to make a finale. Hyperion also issued the 1955 Cooke concerto way back in 1982 but it’s high time for a new version of this piece; if Cooke’s two symphonies on Lyrita last month were “Hindemith with a Bruckner accent”, this marries the former with the English pastoral idiom. Mathias’ jazzy/bluesy concerto from 1975 made its CD premiere on a Lyrita disc in our March 2007 issue. BBC Symphony Orchestra; Michael Collins (clarinet).