Mezzo-soprano voice and bass clarinet together have a rich palette of colours, yet there is hardly any repertoire for this combination. Alison and I had worked together a great deal in the chamber ensemble Gemini and in various other groupings. When we began to present some recitals together, we obviously planned to programme duos as well as solos. Solos there were aplenty for each of us, yet items for bass clarinet, as opposed to clarinet, and voice were virtually non-existent. So Andrew Keeling wrote us Pirate Songs. Then we added James Stephenson’s Remembrance Songs, originally commissioned for a Gemini Festival concert. Gaspar Hunt’s The Heart’s Lament was the winner of a University of Hertfordshire composition prize that required student entrants to write for our mezzo and bass duo. No doubt we will add other new pieces in due course.
Alison commissioned Passing Places from Colin Riley for us to perform, and I commissioned Geoffrey Poole’s Commodo Dragonfly as part of my ongoing championing of the bass clarinet as a solo instrument and in chamber music - over thirty new works have so far come into being. Four Delays was originally written for Alison and recorder and Piers Hellawell kindly rearranged it with clarinet replacing the recorder. Berio’s Sequenza III demanded that the voice be used in totally unexpected, challenging and colourful ways, using techniques and sounds that rapidly became a benchmark for contemporary vocal specialists. William O. Smith’s Five Fragments for Double Clarinet are equally revolutionary, requiring the performer to play the clarinet in ways never before imagined.
We hope you enjoy the variety on this disc as much as we enjoy performing it.

Ian Mitchell