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Mark van de Wiel was principal clarinet of the Philharmonia from 2000 until 2025, during which time he gave the UK premiere of Anna Clyne’s Strange Loops. The title, derived from Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 bestseller Gödel, Escher, Bach, describes a cyclic system where, by moving up or down through different hierarchical levels, you unexpectedly find yourself back at the beginning.
Composed during lockdown, Clyne’s klezmer-inflected musical loops do just that, multiplying and mutating with syncopations and sidesteps and yet somehow reaching a satisfying conclusion. It makes a buoyant, yet bittersweet opener, meticulously realised by Van de Wiel with violinists Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and Fiona Cornall, Nicholas Bootiman on viola and cellist Karen Stephenson.
Clyne’s slinky, 21st-century riffs couldn’t be further from the pastoral calm of Ruth Gipps’ 1942 Rhapsody in E-flat. The clarinet was her husband’s instrument and, along with the oboe, which she played herself, it always drew out the best in her. Van de Wiel is dark-toned and buttery in a performance that matches dramatic resolve with sonic beauty.
Finally, Weber’s Clarinet Quintet gets a virtuoso outing with plenty of colour and pliable tempi. Van de Wiel shapes the solo clarinet lines with imagination and dramatic flair, but his fellow musicians also get their moments in the sun in a generous and collegiate account captured in warmly detailed sound.
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