Robin Holloway

Quintet for clarinet and strings quartet 

This is the World premiere of Robin Holloway's Quintet.

Robin states:

"My quintet for clarinet & strings  was prompted equally by Mark Simpson’s marvellous playing & his eager agreement to play it, & was written August 2020.   The 4 movements come without a break. They’re preceded by an Introduction — slow, florid, fierce.  1 is contrastingly  gentle & thoughtful, building to a broad lyrical climax which yields direct into 2, a scherzo, again ferocious, but enclosing a songful trio before returning yet more athletic, ending with a snap.  3 provides even stronger contrast---andante languido, sensuous & indolent, with at its centre a tiny interlude for the strings alone marked  lontano--- distant.  4 , finale: vigorous momentum  alternates with  further languid sensuality, until the return of the Introduction, which forms the  climax of the whole work, before   a burst of virtuoso energy brings it to a close.

© Robin Holloway