Cirrus String Quartet (string quartet)
Ian Tindale (piano)
John Bradbury (clarinet)
Peter Mallinson (viola)

We continue our voyage of discovery with the music of this chamber music of the extraordinary English composer Percy Hilder Miles (1878-1922). His Piano Sonata of 1920 is a delightful melodic work in three movements, beautifully performed by Ian Tindale, who also plays the charmingly inventive Six Album Leaves of 1894, something of a tribute to Schumann. The Grand Solo for Viola marked ‘so difficult as to be absolutely impossible’. It turns out of course to be quite delightful and perfectly playable, in this performance with great style and sensitivity and with a smile on his face by violist Peter Mallinson. The final work, his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in E flat is another real find and musically is a work of great stature, deserving to be played again and again, it is a remarkable and very fine addition to the Clarinet Quintet repertoire, played here by John Bradbury, Principal Clarinet with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cirrus String Quartet (who recorded WH Reed’s String Quartets for MPR).