Views And Reviews: Arnold’s Clarinet Concerto No.2
...Somewhere in Ireland, 1974. The telephone rings. A voice says, “Malcolm? Benny Goodman here.” Malcolm Arnold shouts, “Sod off!” and hangs up...
Paul Serotsky tells how Malcolm Arnold’s Second Clarinet Concerto came to be written.
To read more of Paul’s excellent and entertaining articles on great music please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/views_and_reviews/
Arnold (1921-2006) – Clarinet Concerto No. 2
Somewhere in Ireland, 1974. The telephone rings. A voice says, “Malcolm? Benny Goodman here.” Malcolm Arnold shouts, “Sod off!” and hangs up. Hardly an auspicious beginning to the story of the Second Clarinet Concerto, but understandable if you've ever been plagued by joke callers. Happy ending? Oh, yes. Goodman persisted, and Arnold accepted his commission. Having left the score in Goodman’s hotel room, between a bouquet and a litre of Jack Daniels, Arnold got another call: “Malcolm, this is Benny. I may be a bit stoned, but I think your concerto is just great!”
Perceptive chap, that Benny Goodman. He thus joined an illustrious line-up that included Frederick Thurston, Leon Goossens, Richard Adeney, Dennis Brain, and John Wallace. In his succession of superbly inventive concertos, written mostly for friends and often out of pure friendship, Arnold is consistently considerate of the particular qualities of his intended players. In this one the writing requires, according to Hugo Cole, “sharp attack, piercing urgency in upper registers, with a more neutral middle register”. Sounds like Goodman to me! Even his age (then 60) is taken into account: the soloist is not over-taxed, with frequent rests provided.
1. Allegro vivace. The keynote is “jazz”. A busy first subject bristles with cycles of notes and vertiginous leaps (and plunges!), while an improvisatory second meanders soulfully. Formal development is curtailed, the music tailing off into a cadenza where the soloist is instructed to improvise “as jazzy as you please, based on the concerto’s themes” (Paul Harris, the soloist's teacher, has attempted to capture this spirit in his specially-written cadenza*). Thence to an abbreviated recapitulation and a resounding finish.
2. Lento. In spite of a classic Arnold tune of disarming wistfulness, this is no cosy interlude: the tune is progressively “deconstructed”, wistfulness gradually crumbling into a woeful pit (this might have “graced” some horror film). The only way out is up, but the path is hard. Following a unison orchestral climax, a solicitous solo flute resuscitates the care-worn tune. It strains free from a stifling atmosphere of ethereal strings and woodwind and, achingly sad, is finally consoled by orchestral warmth.
3. Allegro non troppo (“Pre-Goodman Rag”). After “the pits”, the party! Hair is let down in a big way for this brilliant romp. In the context, the central tune comes across rather like the “Sally Army” venturing into a city-centre pub at ten o' clock on a Saturday night. Needless to say, it is soon engulfed by the good-natured mayhem!
© Paul Serotsky, 1999
* This note was written for a Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra concert, at which the soloist was the (then) 10-year-old Julian Bliss. This was only the second time he had performed with an orchestra, the first also being with the SPO, at the tender age of 8 – and almost dwarfed by his clarinet!.
