In spite of its versatility, for many years clarinetists were somewhat limited with regard to repertoire, or at least they thought they were. There was a fistful of orchestral and chamber music that was consistently recycled in both the concert hall and the recording studio. Then inquisitive and adventurous performers began to wonder what lay in the darker recesses of music history and began seeking other material. The turf that was once almost the sole property of the Mozart and Weber concertos, the Mozart quintet, and the Brahms trio and quintet was being encroached upon suddenly and effectively by works of Karl Stamitz, Franz Krommer, and Louis Spohr. The musical archaeology continued and other names surfaced, including those of Franz Tausch and Bernhard Crusell. Now the clarinetist who steps in front of an orchestra or joins a string trio or quartet on stage or in the studio has a veritable cornucopia of music from which to choose. The listener might make the acquaintance of a concerto of Étienne Solère or Gustav Heinze, a quartet of Franz Tausch, or a quintet of Arthur Somervell or Josef Fuchs.

Of course it should come as no surprise that some musicians have chosen to swim against the prevailing current with regard to repertoire, for one can always find an advocate for the music of a neglected composer or composers. But in order for that advocacy to be taken seriously and not dismissed as merely an idiosyncrasy of the performer, the music must be of an extraordinarily high quality. While this characteristic is common to genius, it is less frequently associated with talent. But careful research can prove to be beneficial in excavating the occasional diamond amid the sea of sapphires and the discovery of that rare work can be artistically rewarding.

One of the performers proactive for a number of years in changing the focus as well as the perceptions of soloist and audience regarding the clarinet repertoire is Dame Thea King. The doyenne of English clarinetists and a graduate of London's Royal College of Music, where she studied with the dynamic and revered Frederick Thurston - whom she later married - Dame Thea is a much respected teacher and beloved artiste. Her career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and teacher spans more than five decades and she proudly assumes credit for teaching several of England's finest clarinetists in the current generation, including Michael Collins (formerly with the Philharmonia and now a much-in-demand soloist across Europe), Richard Hosford (BBC Philharmonic, Nash Ensemble), and David Campbell (popular soloist and sought-after teacher).

Dame Thea was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1985 and created a Dame of the British Empire in 2001. As such she was the first wind player to be honored with the female equivalent of knighthood, an honor that previously had been largely the province of composers, conductors, and singers. Dame Thea has appeared at all of the major festivals as well as with leading orchestras in Britain and also in Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Brazil, and the United States.

Dame Thea has frequently performed as soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra, the ensemble with which she was principal clarinetist (1964-1999), and is currently professor at London's Guildhall School of Music. Dame Thea's distinguished career also includes a staff position at the Royal College of Music (a post she held until 1987), and tenures with the London Mozart Players, the Melos Ensemble, and the Portia Ensemble. She continues to perform regularly and is currently president of the Letchworth Music Club, which sponsors an annual fall-to-spring series featuring emerging young talent.

In addition to her championing rare concertos and chamber music from the 18th and 19th centuries, Dame Thea is also a tireless advocate of the British clarinet repertoire written during the last century. Her premieres include works by Humphrey Searle, Arnold Cooke, and John Ireland; Benjamin Frankel dedicated his clarinet quintet to her. She has recorded sixteen compact discs of solo repertoire for Hyperion, distributed in the United States by Harmonia Mundi USA. Among these are the basic items, including the Mozart concerto and quintet, and the complete Brahms chamber music for the clarinet. Additionally, Dame Thea's impressive and varied discography includes world premiere recordings of rare concertos from the 18th and 19th centuries and music by a number of her countrymen, including Benjamin Britten, Elizabeth Maconchy, Arnold Cooke, and Alan Rawsthorne. There are also two discs of quintets: one featuring works by Arthur Somervell and Gordon Jacob (Hyperion 55110), and the other with music of Herbert Howells, Arnold Cooke, Elizabeth Maconchy, Joseph Holbrooke, and Benjamin Frankel (Hyperion 55105). A review of these recent CD premieres follows this article. There is also a smattering of Dame Thea's repertoire - including John Ireland's Fantasy Sonata - still lurking about on vinyl, but these discs are available only in resale shops, are quite scarce, highly prized, and usually are saddled with exorbitant price tags.

One might think that at some point even a performer this musically curious and exceptionally active would ponder retirement, but not Dame Thea King. She has neither the desire nor need to slacken her pace, continuing to pursue her music with an eternal, not to mention enviable youthful fire. She is now focused upon her "other" instrument, the piano, which she studied with Arthur Alexander at the Royal College of Music. She performed the extremely challenging piano part in John Ireland's Fantasy Sonata for clarinet and piano at a centenary memorial concert for the great English clarinetist Frederick Thurston (later her husband) in September 2001. Dame Thea has recorded the clarinet, basset horn, and piano parts of Mendelssohn's Konzertstück, Op. 114 for BBC Radio 3's "Double Exposure" series.

Being a "retired" clarinetist - I exchanged my instruments over a quarter-century ago for the microphone - but one who maintains an active interest in the instrument's recordings and repertoire, I was keen to speak with Dame Thea about various aspects of her illustrious career. But because of schedules and other obstacles, we mutually agreed that - though somewhat awkward - communication via cyberspace was the obvious solution.

As one might surmise regarding a musician of Dame Thea's gifts and stature, her musical abilities emerged in her childhood and tutelage quickly followed. "My mother was very musical and taught me the piano as soon as I could read," Dame Thea began. "The clarinet came later, in my final year of school when I was offered the loan of a simple system clarinet in an effort to help start a wind section in the school orchestra. The teacher who had been using it only had time to practice in the evenings, but it gave her indigestion!" After a few months Dame Thea performed the slow movement of the Brahms' Sonata in F Minor at a competition. "Herbert Howells, whose Rhapsodic Quintet I would record decades later, was the adjudicator. I later played his sonata to him many years later, but sadly, his memory had failed and he had no recollection of writing it. He did, however, tell me that I played it O.K!"

"At the Royal College of Music the clarinet was a useful second study to my main line (the piano) and I loved accompanying for Thurston's clarinet students (Gervase de Peyer and Sir Colin Davis among them) and later for Jack himself." Half a century after his untimely death from lung cancer at the age of 53, Frederick "Jack" Thurston still casts a giant shadow over English musical life. Considered by many to be the finest English clarinetist that ever lived, Thurston's name is still uttered with the utmost respect and quiet reverence. "Most importantly, he taught me," recalled Dame Thea, "that it was possible to play more beautifully and convincing musically than I had ever dreamed of and that it must take incredible courage and idealism."

During the Second World War, one of Dame Thea's classmates at the Royal College of Music was Lady Mackerras (the former Judy Wilkins). She recollected, "We were his (Thurston's) two star female students at the time; together we played a newly-composed suite for two clarinets by Alan Frank. This caused quite a stir, because it was still quite unusual for two young girls to be playing wind instruments. Whereas marriage and family gradually took me away from the clarinet, Thea went on to become one of the greatest virtuosi in the country, always carrying on the Thurston sound and style." Following the war and graduation from the Royal College of Music, Dame Thea began to embark upon a dual career. "In those days it helped if you played two instruments, however poorly. But slowly the clarinet began to emerge to the point of domination in freelance work, orchestras like Harry Blech's London Mozart Players, the English Chamber Orchestra, chamber music and recitals, all helped by the BBC's Third Programme."

Dame Thea was - in current parlance - a quick study. Sir Charles Mackerras recalled that she joined the Sadler's Wells Opera orchestra in the early 1950s while it was on tour and without any rehearsal. He took her through the intricacies of Italian opera with its fluctuating tempi and was most pleased with how quickly she responded, grasping the difficulties of Puccini as she entered the operatic world.

In spite of her study with Thurston, Dame Thea was never a clone. Her colleague Colin Bradbury, former principal clarinetist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra commented, "As Thurston's accompanist, his pupil and later his wife, Thea King would readily have been forgiven, after his (Thurston's) untimely death, for assuming the role of bearer of the Holy Grail and upholder of a great tradition. Instead she developed her own voice and became the player we hear on recordings, never afraid to experiment and always in search of new ideas." Clarinetist Gervase de Peyer - who won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music the same day as Dame Thea - added, "Certainly her distinguished career and recordings have helped illuminate for all music lovers the breadth of Frederick Thurston's achievement, whilst the depth of her own musicianship and dedication to teaching has inspired many generations of clarinetists."

Dame Thea's appetite for new ideas and new music is immense and she has also devoted her time and attention to repertoire written for her husband. "Thurston had little enthusiasm for recorded music, preferring the live audience," she said. "He recorded precious little of the music he inspired." That mission was undertaken by Dame Thea whose recordings of music composed for Thurston include works by John Ireland, Gordon Jacob, Sir Arthur Bliss, and Alan Rawsthorne. She has also inspired other prominent 20th century English composers write concertos and chamber music for her. Benjamin Frankel's quintet of 1956 bears the dedication "For Thea Thurston, to Jack." Since Dame Thea was not well known at the time, the premiere - at the Cheltenham Festival - was given by Gervase de Peyer. When Ted Perry founded Hyperion Recordings over 20 years ago, Dame Thea King was one of the first artists Perry approached. "I recorded for Ted," she reminisced, "before he initiated Hyperion. In the days of the LP, Ted was the producer for my recording of John Ireland's Fantasy Sonata on Saga; my first Hyperion recording held the Finzi and Stanford concerti. After that, Ted gave me free rein to choose whatever I wished to record. I had always felt that the repertoire needed to be expanded and explored, and kept an eye open for lesser-known pieces, scrutinizing and preparing scores and parts."

Dame Thea has a number of other gems in her crown. For one, she was among the earliest artists to perform Mozart's concerto and quintet on a basset clarinet, an instrument with its lower range extended by a third. "Playing the basset horn in Mozart's divertimenti convinced me that the concerto was written for a clarinet with an extended lower compass and the Winterthur manuscript soon proved it for me. My recording of the concerto for Hyperion (66199) basically followed the restoration of the basset clarinet version prepared by the distinguished English clarinetist Alan Hacker, modifying it in several places." As far as the quintet is concerned, Dame Thea adopted most of the suggestions found in the preface to the Bärenreiter edition of the score. While she has not recorded Mozart or any material as for that matter on period instruments, Dame Thea - always the intelligent and interested musician - has not ignored developments in that arena. "The historical or authentic movement interests me although I have not found time to specialize. It has refreshed our ideas about style, but I think it may be impossible to reproduce typical sounds from that era."

In spite of an extremely active performing and teaching schedule, Dame Thea finds time for her other interest, theater. "This is a bonus when one lives in London," she noted. "My passion is drama, but I also have a fondness for Sondheim's musicals. It so relates to what we are trying to do in music, putting ourselves in the shoes of the creator, rather than using the art for our own purposes." Indeed there are Thespian tendencies within Dame Thea's family. "My niece trained at a drama school and one of my uncles aspired to be a comedian, though it wasn't viewed as a respectable profession at the time."

If theater is Dame Thea's passion, the piano is her obsession. "My piano activities are very much based on playing with other musicians, including a string trio, clarinetist Joy Farrall, and repertoire for four-hands. There is no need to look far for masterpieces. I'm so lucky to be able to return and get my fingers into superb, but challenging repertoire. The main thing is to live long enough to enjoy it. "

Finally this note. I asked Dame Thea how she would like to be remembered by posterity. In spite of her unquestioned and deserved position of prominence in English musical life, her reply was unquestionably modest and had nothing to do with her career as a performer. "I'd like to be remembered," she mused, "as a catalyst, someone who has prompted players to adventure into unusual, though exceptional repertoire."

There is no doubt that Dame Thea King will be remembered in terms far more eloquent than these or any I could craft, but one thing is certain. She will be remembered by many of her colleges as well as current and former students as King of the Clarinet. Long may she reign!

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SOMERVELL Clarinet Quintet in G; JACOB Clarinet Quintet in g • Dame Thea King (cl); Aeolian String Quartet • HELIOS 55110 (57:44)

HOWELLS Rhapsodic Quintet, Op 31 (1917); COOKE Quintet (1962); MACONCHY Quintet (1963); FRANKEL Quintet (1956); HOLBROOKE Eilean Shonah • Dame Thea King (cl); Britten String Quartet • HELIOS 55105 (66:20)

In May of 1742 just a month after the world premiere of Handel's Messiah in a music hall on Fishamble Street in Dublin, the Dublin Mercury carried an announcement pertaining to a forthcoming concert by a certain Mr. Charles, called "The Hungarian" and "...Master of the French Horn, with his second: accompanied by all the best Hands in this City...N.B. The Clarinet, the Hautbois de Amour and the Shalamo, were never heard in this Kingdom before." Dublin was about to host another musical first: the first appearance of the clarinet in the British Isles. The obscure "Mr. Charles" remains a question mark over two and a half centuries later, but his advocacy of the clarinet led to the establishment of an English school of clarinet playing whose greatest exponents - when assembled chronologically - include John and William Mahon, Thomas Willman, Henry Lazarus, Charles Draper, Frederick Thurston, and Dame Thea King. This artistic lineage is discussed in meticulous detail in a series of four books written by Pamela Weston and published by Emerson Edition Ltd., Yorkshire, England.

Suffice it to say that - given the extensive tradition - the clarinet has successfully captured and held the attention of the English composers and concert goers since its early appearances. Its malleable and flowing tone lent the masters of Romanticism some of their most glowing moments and its varied personalities inspired a number of composers to pen some of their finest works for the instrument.

Much of the clarinet's repertoire has had to suffer unwarranted neglect due to the understandable dominance of the works of Mozart, Brahms, and others. But just over two decades ago that began to change with the establishment by the late Ted Perry of Hyperion Recordings. His first release was an LP of clarinet concertos by Gerald Finzi and Sir Charles Stanford with Dame Thea King as soloist. That visionary and revelatory recording was to be the first in a long line of releases by Dame Thea that would alter the perception of the clarinet repertoire for years to come. Suddenly performers were asking, "Where has this music been all these years?" and "Is there more material like this out there?" The answer to the latter query was a resounding "Yes!" as Dame Thea's recorded legacy indicates. Her recordings are a treasure trove of material in both the orchestral and chamber music genres and demonstrate Dame Thea's interest not only in rare 18th and 19th century repertoire but also in 20th century material, in particular that from the British Isles.

The first of these two compact discs was originally issued on vinyl in 1981. Even though both of these are reissues on Helios, Hyperion's mid-price label, the Somervell and Jacob quintets made their initial bows on compact disc with their release in February and the anthology of Howells, Cooke, Maconchy, et al represents a re-release of a recording issued in CD in 1991. Each of the composers possessed their own unique gifts. The forms of expression include the idyllic and quintessential English Romanticism found in the examples of Sir Arthur Somervell (1883-1937) and Herbert Howells (1892-1983), and via an arrangement by Josef Holbrooke (1878-1958) of his song Eilean Shonah, the music moves toward new and different forms of artistic expression. This metamorphosis was essential since no artistic medium can exist based upon regurgitating epigones of its past. An artistically incestuous approach accomplishes nothing and risks producing art that is derivative to the point that it may parody itself. The other composers represent more contemporary and different approaches and influences including Czech composer Karel Jirák (Maconchy), and Paul Hindemith (Cooke). Maconchy's quintet displays what annotator Christopher Palmer called "...a ruder, earthier aspect..." and Cooke's effort reveals a keen sense of structural integrity with a strong emphasis on line, both hallmarks of his mentor. The musical personalities and approaches to composition proffered on these two CDs vary, but each of the works possesses its own set of merits and challenges for the participants and each is successful in its endeavor to offer an artistically superior and musically satisfying canvas.

The performances are models of their kind and even though they date from as long as two decades ago, they have an air of artistic and technical superiority that is yet to be surpassed and may never be. Dame Thea King plays with unswerving authority and at times an almost volcanic fervor that is beautifully wed to an exceptional sense of balance and enviable poise. She is clearly in charge from beginning to end, has a warm, rich, and woody tone, and offers seamless execution that perfectly accentuate the kaleidoscopic array of the shifting moods found in these works. The Aeolian and Britten quartets support and complement Dame Thea's unlabored performances with clearly defined and masterfully blended readings exemplified by erudition, instinct, and pellucidity. If that's not convincing enough for you, Hyperion's fabled, exquisite, and full-blooded recorded sound is another feather in the cap of these wonderful and revelatory discs. What are you waiting for?

Send Email to michael.carter@eku.edu.