There might be no harps or harpsichords, trumpets or trombones, but woodwind instruments have been respectably represented in the Wigmore Hall’s current lunchtime series. After the recitals by the oboist Nicholas Daniel and flautist Adam Walker came clarinettist Michael Collins, who was partnered by Michael McHale in Saint-Saëns, Weber and Poulenc.
There was nothing particularly adventurous in their programme, but the Saint-Saëns’ Clarinet Sonata, at least, was a rarity – a late work, composed in 1921, the last year of his life. It’s typically fluent and generally good-humoured, apart from a sombre slow movement in the unusual key of E flat minor, whose opening seems so growlingly pictorial it could almost have been a movement Saint-Saëns had left out of his Carnival of the Animals.
Collins gave it a fabulously sleek and stylish performance, and he delivered one of the flashy staples of the clarinettist’s repertoire, Weber’s Grand Duo Concertant, with the same easy aplomb. Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata, another late work, with more than a family likeness to his sonata for flute, which Walker had played the previous week, has rather more depth – it’s dedicated to the memory of the composer Arthur Honegger, and the delicate central Romanza seems very much personal remembrance. This performance got its bittersweet balance exactly right, but never forgot that there’s always a bit of twinkle in Poulenc’s musical eye.
• Available on BBC Sounds and Wigmore Hall Live Stream. The Wigmore Hall lunchtime series continues on Radio 3 until 26 June.
