THREE PIECES

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs was identified as having perfect pitch at the age of three and would improvise melodies on the piano before he could speak properly. Although his main subject at Winchester School was History, he began to study music there in earnest and continued with both subjects at Cambridge University where he graduated in 1913, to become a teacher at the Wick Preparatory School. There he befriended and collaborated with the poet Walter de la Mare in writing a musical for a school performance, and this resulted in Gibbs being persuaded to take a year out from teaching to study at the Royal College of Music. He managed to get some of his songs published which launched his career as a composer of nearly 150 songs, many of them settings of Walter de la Mare's poems, and a number of choral works suitable for the amateur choirs with which he was associated. Besides three symphonies, chamber music and solo instrumental pieces all written on 'traditional' lines without so much as a nod towards serialism and atonality, Gibbs wrote 'Dusk', a slow waltz for orchestra and piano which earned him more in royalties than all his other works combined.

The 'Three Pieces for Clarinet and Piano' were published in 1957 and dedicated to the outstanding clarinettist Jack Brymer. The first, 'Shadow - March' is marked 'molto staccato' which sets off its shifting minor tonality, and contrasts with the gentler 3/4 lilt of the second piece 'Air'. The third piece, 'Caprice' is in A-B-A form with A built around a series of bouncing semiquaver runs and B more restful, marked 'dolce e legato' before the return of 'A' as a finale to the whole set.

• Air
• Caprice

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