It was interesting to review Hugh Shrapnel’s music previously for Fanfare: The Ivory Piano Duo performed Piano Set No. 1, plus a variety of smaller pieces (Fanfare 47:6). Shrapnel’s eminently approachable and pleasing music reappears now with a selection of chamber works, starting with the Sonatina for Horn and Piano, first performed at the 20th London New Wind Festival, where the soloist was Henryk Sierkowicz. The soloist here is Jonathan Farey, with pianist Alison Rhind. The music is open-air in demeanor, with just the odd cloud coloring the light blue horizon. Farey has all the requisite agility for the score’s demands, and Rhind is a most sympathetic partner; the two are well placed in the sound picture. The central Adagio makes much cantabile use of the horn’s mid-range. Farey’s sound is full (without being plummy), and he is most expressive, as is Rhind, who carefully calibrates each line (in the piano left-hand duet with singing horn lines against high repeated piano chords, for example). The finale, marked simply Con moto, is a 6/8 Rondo, although very unlike those by Mozart. This is carefree music with side glances at the music hall; it’s very entertaining and diverting. I can find zero complaints as to Farey’s performance: His attack is superb, his agility second to none. I would like to hear more of Rhind in due course as well. 

Scored for oboe, clarinet, horn, and tenor trombone, Objets fixes is a five-movement suite written for the Ninth London New Wind Festival in 2006 (the composition spans 2005–06). Shrapnel took what he perceived to be the “awkwardness” of the instrumental forces to dictate the melodic material, something readily audible in the fast first movement. This movement presents the material for the rest—“fixed objects,” as the composer puts it, “repeated interlocking musical phrases like the components of a machine.” The ensuing Moderato is surprisingly quick in effect. The interlocking becomes a “hook” that the ear quickly locates; the bare bones become ever more insistent in the third movement, while the fourth includes some positively brazen passages. The fifth and final movement is more circumspect, but the harmonic links to the foregoing are evident. This is a clever piece, notably more astringent than the Horn Sonatina, and really most effective. The players, all expert, are Rachel Harwood-White, oboe; Nicholas Ellis, clarinet; Jonathan Foley, horn; and Simon Wills, tenor trombone. 

The short (three minutes) Coalition Blues for alto trombone and piano (played by Wills and Rhind) is a musical reaction to the UK’s coalition government of 2010 and is dedicated to trombonist Alan Tomkinson (who sadly passed in February 2024). The trombone boldly proclaims a “People’s Theme”: working people against austerity. Hope is present in the close; Wills is a hyper-accurate trombone player, and there are some sterling, fast dialogs between trombone and piano. 

The more extended Trio for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano lasts approximately seven minutes, and rather congruently had a seven-year gestation (2015–22). Originally for violin, clarinet, and piano, the composer was dissatisfied with the violin contribution, so a flute was substituted. Cast in one movement, the work has its scenery change many times, including stark juxtapositions of warm lyricism against more acidic, staccato planes. The performance is fabulous: The juxtapositions are pointedly stated, and the staccato chords for all the players are beautifully sounded together. Julian Sperry’s flute works beautifully with Nicholas Ellis’s clarinet, while Alison Rhind’s piano contribution is often meltingly affecting. 

It is fascinating to see a piece based on the idea of belladonna, from which it takes its title. Also known as “deadly nightshade,” the “beautiful woman” of the piece’s title gets that name because its use dilates pupils (which, in Renaissance times, was seen as an aspect of feminine beauty). There are echoes, perhaps, of languishing fauns or Debussy’s Syrinx in the flute line of this flute and piano piece (played by Sperry and Rhind). Relaxed in extremis, it is three minutes of pure transportation to forbidden, eddying realms, perhaps fueled by a microdose of the titular plant. Interestingly, the Clarinet Sonata returns us to the mood of the first movement of the Horn Sonatina: light and unassuming. The harmonic fragrance comes from equally light dissonance. The Camarilla Ensemble boasts many fine players, but honestly I could listen to Nicholas Ellis’s clarinet playing all day. His liquid legato is a thing of marvelous beauty, something particularly in evidence in the first movement. Rhind projects her melodies in the darker Andante to perfection; Shrapnel chooses his harmonies superbly. The close of that Andante is remarkable: a false “closing” diminuendo before a magical coda that disappears into nothing. The finale, another Con moto, brings us out into daylight again. The mists clear; piano accents bite; harmonies gain a touch of vinegar. 

Scored for wind quintet (Sperry, Harwood-White, Ellis, Louise Watson on bassoon, and Farey), Hilly Fields comprises six short pieces beginning, as is surely right, with a “Morning Run.” The six movements illustrate the composer’s beloved Southeast London, and indeed my first address in London was close to Hilly Fields (which is between Ladywell and my old place of residence, Brockley). This “Morning Run” was originally for flute and piano, but the arrangement is expert, and the performance full of confidence. A “Reverie” is as laid-back as they come, but again a harmonic tang prevents musical lethargy. Harwood-White’s oboe sings particularly emotively here. The idea behind “Games” is clever, and confidently delivered by the players: Many switches of rhythms against one underlying pulse represent the multiplicity of games seen on the fields. Some overlapping phrases seem to hearken back to Objets fixes. Shrapnel’s musical painting of “Blythe Hill” seems decidedly crepuscular, and all the more lovely for it. Chords are beautifully blended, against which the clarinet sings. But the real dusk is next (the penultimate movement is actually called “Dusk”), marvelously evocative. The last movement brings “Fayre,” a musical picture of the annual Holly Fields Fayre which, if this performance is anything to go by, is chock full of jollity and bonhomie, and perhaps the odd cheeky child, too. 

Recorded at St George’s Headstone, Harrow, London by James Unwin and Adaq Khan, this is a nicely varied disc of superbly crafted music, performed with real expertise by the Camarilla Ensemble.