Strange Loops: Clarinet Quintets Mark van de Wiel

• Anna Clyne (b. 1980): Strange Loops:
• 1 Clyne: Strange Loops 19:40
• Ruth Gipps (1921 - 1999): Rhapsody for Clarinet & String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 23:
• 2 Gipps: Rhapsody for Clarinet & String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 23 10:10
• Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826): Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34:
• 3 Weber: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34: I. Allegro 10:27
• 4 Weber: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34: II. Fantasia - Adagio ma non troppo 05:57
• 5 Weber: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34: III. Minuetto Capriccio - Presto 05:16
• 6 Weber: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, Op. 34: IV. Rondo - Allegro giojoso 06:14
• Total Runtime 57:44

Info for Strange Loops: Clarinet Quintets

Strange Loops presents clarinettist Mark Van de Wiel with colleagues from the Philharmonia Orchestra in three works spanning over two centuries of chamber music. The album centres on the first recording of Anna Clyne's Strange Loops, written in 2020 and exploring repeating and transforming musical patterns. It is paired with Ruth Gipps's Rhapsody, a single-movement work highlighting the clarinet's lyrical and colouristic qualities, and Carl Maria von Weber's virtuosic Clarinet Quintet, composed for Heinrich Baermann. Recorded at Garsington Studios in 2024, the programme reflects van de Wiel's longstanding commitment to both contemporary and established clarinet repertoire.

Mark van de Wiel, clarinet
Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay, violin
Fiona Cornall, violin
Nicholas Bootiman, viola
Karen Stephenson, cello

Mark van de Wiel
Recordings include Ben Foskett’s Hornet and Phillip Cashian’s Blue Circus on NMC, Flint Juventino Beppe’s Distant Words with the Philharmonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy, works by Alissa Firsova on Vivat, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on Psalmus, and the Nielsen, Phibbs and Mozart concertos on the Signum label.

Mark has been the clarinettist with Endymion since its formation in 1980. Other chamber music collaborators have included Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pascal Rogé, Geoffrey Parsons, Elizabeth Leonskaja, Kate Royal, the Quartetto Camargo Guarnieri of São Paolo, and the Brodsky Quartet, with whom he gave the London premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Hymn to Artemis Locheia. With Zsolt-Tihamėr Visontay and Yefim Bronfman he gave several performances of Bartok’s Contrasts in the Philharmonia’s Bartok series Infernal Dance.

Born in Northampton and educated at Merton College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music, Mark was appointed principal clarinettist with Welsh National Opera and subsequently with Glyndebourne Touring Opera. He joined the Philharmonia as principal clarinet in 2000, and the London Sinfonietta in 2002. He is also principal with the London Chamber Orchestra (with whom he has appeared as soloist at La Scala, Milan), For several years he was the clarinet and basset horn soloist in Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito at the Bayerisches Staatsoper. Mark is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, where he is a Professor, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Northampton University. For many years he was the clarinet professor for the I, Culture Orchestra, and for the British Isles Music Festival. Mark is a committed teacher, and has given masterclasses world-wide.

Future plans include the world premiere at Kings Place in London of a new Clarinet Quintet (with the Brodsky Quartet), and solo pieces, by Joseph Phibbs, which Mark commissioned jointly with Jouko Heikura, to be released on Signum together with the Mozart Quintet, performances of the Debussy Premiere Rhapsodie with the Philharmonia and Santtu-Matias Rouvali in London and Madrid, the premiere recording of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Hymn to Artemis Locheia for clarinet quintet, the premiere recording of Anna Clyne’s Strange Loops for clarinet quintet, to be released with quintets by Weber and Ruth Gipps, an album of Clarinet Concertinos with the Philharmonia and Rouvali, and a new Clarinet Concertino from Jonathan Dove, commissioned by Mark jointly with the Philharmonia, to be premiered in London with the Philharmonia and Rouvali, all to be released on Signum.

Booklet for Strange Loops: Clarinet Quintets