Ruth Gipps’ Clarinet Concerto receives its World Première

Applause for Peter Cigleris and the London Repertoire Orchestra after the world première of Ruth Gipps’ clarinet concerto.

It was through an evening of wind and wet leaves that I made my way to the church of St. James’s on Piccadilly, where the world première of Ruth Gipps’ clarinet concerto (Op. 9, 1940) was given last night by the orchestra she founded, the London Repertoire Orchestra.  I had been looking forward to this concert for some time, this being the first opportunity I have had to hear Gipps’ music played live.  I was not disappointed.

I had known the concerto was an early work, but hadn’t worked out that Ruth Gipps wrote it when she was only nineteen.  In fact, the programme notes reveal that it was written as a present for her husband-to-be, Robert Baker, who was himself a professional clarinet player.*  It also lends significance to the duets between oboe — the composer’s own instrument — and clarinet soloist in the second movement.  (Clarinet and oboe solos also appear in the second movement of her piano concerto).  Yet, extraordinarily, the concerto was never performed in her lifetime, remaining unheard for seven decades until last night’s concert.

The long-neglected music was as beautiful as I had hoped.  Even from a first hearing its sound was distinctively Gipps’: misty harmonies for the strings, bright treble rivulets in the woodwind, a plain-hearted lyricism throughout.  There was cheerfulness in many passages, but also in others a homely wistfulness which is definitely my cup of tea.  The overall mood of her Song for Orchestra (Op. 33, 1948) is not dissimilar, I think.

Two thoughts struck me, one sobering, the other more cheering.  Firstly, a work’s beauty is no guarantee of its being heard, still less of being acclaimed; craft alone, however sound and sincere, will not save a piece from falling into obscurity.  But, on the other hand, it is a that very beauty that gives it its best chance of rescue from that obscurity.  This is what has happened here, it seems.  Beauty has won out in the end.

Many thanks to the London Repertoire Orchestra, Peter Cigleris (the soloist), David Cutts (the conductor) and all involved in this performance.  And then for turning around and playing Sibelius’ Second Symphony!  I will remember the evening for a long time to come.

*Coincidentally, the man from whose seventeenth-century trade in piccadills the street of Piccadilly got its name was also called Robert Baker.