Forgotten Sounds

While hunting for unfamiliar repertoire for his instrument, clarinettist Graeme Steele Johnson discovered the Octet by Berlin-born American composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935). From a much-revised and untidy manuscript copy found in the Library of Congress, Johnson has reconstructed a quirky yet genial work full of surprises. Composed in 1896, Loeffler’s Octet for two clarinets, harp, string quartet and double bass is clearly influenced by Brahms. Yet, in contrast with the German composer’s often serious and even despondent temperament, Loeffler’s music sounds unbuttoned and quite intoxicated with happiness, straying with urbane carelessness into wayward harmonies and even touches of whole-tone abandon that Brahms would have shunned. Johnson and his colleagues play the Octet with fluency and conviction, memorably conveying the hedonistic delight of its “Adagio molto” second movement. The finale recalls Brahms as arranger of the Hungarian Dances, with spicy Romanian-style melodies and harmonies adding zest to this lively movement. Before the Octet, we hear Johnson’s arrangement—modelled after Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro—of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. All the crucial elements are there: the sustained string chords, richly underpinned by the double bass; the watery harp; and, of course, the flute solo, seductively spun by Ji Weon Ryu. To finish, we hear Loeffler’s charming yet quirky song Timbres oubliés in a sun-dappled arrangement by its performers Johnson and harpist Bridget Kibbey.