Jack Brymer's three recorded performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto are here made available again, on CD, and to them are added, in this group of records, the performances by Thea King and by Robert Marcellus. The latter can be dismissed fairly quickly. Marcellus is a good player, with a pleasant tone and an unassuming manner; and this he needs, given the dominating force of Szell's contribution with the Cleveland Orchestra. He plays docilely, with nice phrasing in the Adagio but an inert style in the finale. The coupling, the violin and viola Sinfonia Concertante, finds Szell opening with aggressive attack and throughout a fairly ruthless approach. Druian and Skernick play well together, but they are recorded as if from within the orchestra, and are given too little chance for the sense of chamber music that should be somewhere in the centre of a great performance of the work. The Clarinet concerto's finale is very hard driven indeed.

It is in this movement that Thea King excels. She is given a sensitive, stylish accompaniment by Alun Francis and the ECO, and clearly enjoys herself very much. She is rather less successful, I think, with the darker side of the music, and does not respond very vividly to the moments in the first movement when Mozart turns the harmony away to a more melancholy region, or to the touch of the elegiac in the Adagio. But this is a distinguished performance, one it was good to meet again. She gives a splendid performance of Spohr's Fourth Clarinet Concerto, even if here too she can underestimate the romantic melancholy of some of the Adagio. But the final Rondo al espagnol is a delight.

Jack Brymer's three records are all of the highest distinction. His first, with Sir Thomas Beecham, was coupled, as here, to the performance of the Bassoon Concerto by that great artist and fellow member of the so-called Royal Family of the RPO, Gwydion Brooke (could we have a reissue of his wonderful performance of Weber's concerto?). The second was with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO, originally coupled to the Flute and Harp Concerto played by Hubert Barwahser and Osian Ellis, now it returns coupled to the beautiful performance of the Clarinet Quintet, which in turn has been separated from the original coupling, the Clarinet Trio. Then in 1973 came the third of Brymer's versions of the Concerto, as listed above, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Sir Neville Marriner; the coupling was then as now Neil Black's delightful performance of the Oboe Concerto.