youhe third UK release of by Anna Clyne Residency as the Philharmonic's featured composer was the rather incongruous centerpiece of a concert conducted by Pekka Kuusisto that, with works by Bellini, Tchaikovsky and Bernstein, otherwise had a Romeo and Juliet theme. Clyne's Weathered, co-commissioned by the orchestra, is a clarinet concerto, a substantial five-movement work composed for Martin Frost, who was the soloist. It's a magnificent showcase of Fröst's spectacular virtuosity, making use of all the tricks and extended techniques he has made his own.
As the title suggests, Weathered has an extra-musical program. Clyne has said that the movements relate in turn to "a rusting bridge, a broken heart, a windworn castle, a majestic forest and a warming planet", but it would make perfect musical sense without any knowledge of those associations. . The writing for soloist and orchestra is surprisingly vivid and colorful, from the opening moments, with their somber references to a plainchant, to the finale of the finale nearly half an hour later, when the plainchant returns to usher in the quiet and desolate nearby.
Fröst was a compelling presence, whether singing as he played, exploring otherworldly harmonics, soaring to the upper limit of the clarinet's range, or exploding in torrents of bravura. No doubt other soloists and other orchestras will take up Clyne's score, but they will do well to match the brilliance of this performance.
Earlier that evening, in the next room in the Purcell Room, Clyne had presented the second of two programs he has curated this season in the Philharmonia's Music of Today series: four pieces for wind instruments by women composers, three of them completed. in recent years and inspired by the work of American artists and poets. There was by Nathalie Joachim the rather formulaic wind quintet Seen, based on portraits by Whitfield Lovell, Clyne's own rousing Overflow, for double wind quintet, based on a poem by Emily Dickinson, and the world premiere of Grace Evangeline Mason's The Water Garden, after words by Amy Lowell, who adds a harp to the double quintet for an intricate and exuberant parade of watery imagery.
