Thea King (1925-2007) was the doyenne of English clarinettists – renowned as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, accompanist and teacher. She championed British music as well as shining a spotlight on early 19th-century clarinet works, her legacy preserved in a fine catalogue of recordings for Hyperion, where her mellifluous tone – warm and rounded – glowed.

She was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, on December 26, 1925, and her first instrument was the piano. It was a quirk of fate that saw her take up the clarinet. During the Second World War, the BBC SO was first evacuated from London to Bristol, and then in 1941 to Bedford, while King was attending Bedford High School. She became friends with Elizabeth Thurston, daughter of the orchestra’s principal clarinettist Frederick ‘Jack’ Thurston. Like her father, Elizabeth also played the clarinet, so King took it up too. ‘I was offered the loan of a simple system clarinet in an effort to help start a wind section in the school orchestra,’ she recalled. ‘The teacher who had been using it only had time to practise in the evenings, but it gave her indigestion!’

She studied with the BBC SO’s second clarinettist Ralph Clarke, and a few months later was performing the Andante from Brahms’s F minor Clarinet Sonata in a competition adjudicated by Herbert Howells, whose Rhapsodic Quintet she would later record (twice: for Hyperion and Lyrita).

In 1943, King entered the Royal College of Music, London, on a scholarship, principally as a pianist studying with Arthur Alexander, but with clarinet as her second study. In typical self-deprecating manner, she later related, ‘When I left the Royal College, I was no good at either instrument – an absolute dogsbody.’ At the RCM, she studied the clarinet with Thurston, but as she was primarily a pianist, she got to learn much of the clarinet repertoire from the keyboard, accompanying her fellow students, including Gervase de Peyer and Colin Davis. Of Thurston’s teaching, she would later explain, ‘He taught me that it was possible to play more beautifully and more convincingly than I had ever dreamed of and that it must take incredible courage and idealism.’

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, there were increased opportunities for women to enter the music profession and in 1950 King became co-principal of the Sadler’s Wells Orchestra. ‘At Sadler’s Wells,’ she later recalled, ‘I occasionally went to the pub with Charles Mackerras, who had been an oboist in the orchestra, but was already conducting as an assistant. He would beat at me while I sang the clarinet part.’

She also accompanied most of Thurston’s recitals as a pianist. During this time, her relationship with Thurston became closer, and in January 1953 they wed. Their marriage was tragically short-lived as Thurston died of lung cancer, aged 52, just 11 months after their wedding. King inherited Thurston’s clarinets, and arguably much of his style, not least the charm of his chamber music musicianship.

As well as playing at Sadler’s Wells, King succeeded de Peyer as principal clarinettist in Harry Blech’s London Mozart Players in 1955, and was also principal of the ECO from 1964 to 1999. In the field of chamber music, she was a founder member, with Ruth Gipps, of the all-female Portia Wind Ensemble, and later joined the Melos Ensemble (1974-93). She taught at the RCM for 26 years (1961-87) before moving to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (from 1988). Notable students included Colin Bradbury, David Campbell, Michael Collins and Richard Hosford.

King was a strong advocate for British composers. Works written for her included Frankel’s Clarinet Quintet (1956), Maconchy’s Fantasia for clarinet and piano (1979), Jacob’s Mini Concerto (1980) and Howard Blake’s Clarinet Concerto (1984). She also premiered Arnold Cooke’s Clarinet Sonata (1962) and John Ireland’s Sextet of 1898, which had lain unheard for 62 years.

It was with Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto – written for Thurston in 1949 – along with that by Stanford that King made her first Hyperion recording (Finzi recorded in August, Stanford in November 1979), which became the first release on the new independent label, launched in October 1980. It’s a very special recording of the Finzi, and was a runner-up in my Gramophone Collection (6/16) – ‘a superb account, which deserves to be in any collection’. I myself learnt the clarinet with two of King’s pupils, and to study Finzi’s music with teachers who could trace their ‘Finzi lineage’ back through King to Thurston himself was pretty special.

That Finzi recording comes with a charming story. Hyperion’s founder, Ted Perry, was keen to persuade King to allow his new label to issue the recording (which had also been offered to other labels). Exploiting her love of cows, he sent her a mock-up of the cover, which featured George Vincent’s painting Trowse Meadows. It did the trick. Every one of King’s Hyperion recordings went on to feature a cow as the cover star!

King’s Hyperion discography is incredibly rich. As well as championing British music, she shone in early clarinet concertos. She was one of the first to play Mozart’s concerto and quintet on the basset clarinet (the instrument they were composed for), her 1985 disc becoming one of Hyperion’s all-time best sellers (she’d recorded both works previously on the standard clarinet, in the 1960s and ’70s). She recorded concertos by Crusell, Spohr, Weber and Tausch. Her discs of Brahms’s late clarinet works remain sublime. The recent acquisition of Hyperion by Universal Music and the uploading of its complete catalogue to streaming services have opened up King’s discography to a new generation of clarinet lovers. Although her recordings were largely made for Hyperion (18 albums), there is a notable disc of Beethoven and Mozart piano and wind quintets on Sony (1986), made with Murray Perahia and King’s ECO colleagues.

Later in life, King returned to the piano. In 2001, at a centenary concert for Frederick Thurston, she played the piano part in Ireland’s Fantasy-Sonata for clarinet and piano, which had been written for Thurston. In the late 1970s, she even recorded the Brahms F minor Sonata, performing both clarinet and piano parts, for BBC Radio 3’s Double Exposure series, as well as all three parts in Mendelssohn’s Op 114 Konzertstück for clarinet, basset clarinet and piano.

King died in 2007, having been made a DBE in 2001 – thus becoming the first wind playing dame.

Recommended Recording

Finzi Clarinet Concerto Stanford Clarinet Concerto

Philharmonia Orchestra / Alun Francis

Hyperion (11/80)

This album launched the independent label and was very much a tribute to Frederick Thurston, with the first ever recording of the Stanford (a work championed by Thurston) and the second of the Finzi (premiered by Thurston). King’s tone glows, and it’s still a hugely satisfying listen.

This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of Gramophone. Never miss an issue of the world's leading classical music magazine – subscribe to Gramophone today