I first heard the music of Magnus Lindberg back in 2010 when the fabulous Ashley Smith performed the Clarinet Concerto with the ANAM orchestra. This mellifluous, capricious and glistening music captured my imagination. I was at the end of my undergraduate studied at the VCA as a composer, but throughout my undergrad kept my own clarinet playing up. I wasn’t the best player, but I was very enthusiastic. I played with a community orchestra, for my fellow composition comrades in the course and for personal pleasure and exploration. The Clarinet was my first musical voice, and so holds a very special place in my composition output and the repertoire I love to listen to. Listening to this stunning concerto (which if you know the clarinet repertoire well, you might have some slight suggestions and elongations of themes from the Mozart Clarinet Concerto) came at a time when I was writing my own double concerto for Harp and Clarinet. Lindberg’s shadow is certainly there in this piece. I wrote it for myself to perform, so it’s limited to my own skill as a clarinettist. I wrote it to give myself the challenge of performing a concerto with an orchestra, and then I would retire from the clarinet world and not put audiences through my average playing again! I’m happy to say that I have not picked up my clarinet since. It all came full circle when I performed my concerto in 2015 with the now defunct Hopkins Sinfonia, with Ashley as soloist.

What I like about Lindberg’s approach is to me, his music brings together the deep theoretical learnings of the post war Avant Guard approach of composer like Ligeti, Boulez etc, the stunning shimmering quality of the finish music tradition, and a glistening and powerful coloristic sound world that attains for beauty.