The combination of clarinet and piano does seem to have appealed to British composers (indeed this is a reflection, really, of the similar appeal of the clarinet itself, whose enthusiastic students in our schools are past computation!). And this is a winning programme indeed, without taking into account any restriction on its selection.
The John Ireland, for example: this is something like a major sonata even in the field of sonatas in general, pushing the bounds of the particular instruments forward into often overtly powerful music. The two sonatinas, understandably, do not do this; but in them Horovitz and Malcolm Arnold both reflect the joy of life, and of its impulse towards activity. Both, too, have half an ear for the idioms of gentle jazz: easier to point to in the Horovitz, but nevertheless clearly underlying the Arnold. Finzi's amiable Bagatelles are clear of this (perhaps not quite so amiable as usual in this particular performance: but the relative hurry does certainly lessen the risk of the first four bagatelles all sounding allegretto amabile). Alan Richardson's gentle Roundelay also escapes the influence, but Paul Harvey's Suite on themes of Gershwin does not; indeed how could it? Nevertheless, Gershwin has never sounded quite like this before: Harvey constructs three unaccompanied solos on I got rhythm, Summertime and It ain't necessarily so; not so much on the tunes themselves as on the melodic tags from which those tunes are constructed.
The result is fascinating. The result also declares with astonishing clarity the quality of sound made by de Peyer: the apparently effortless, gritless tone, warmed at all suitable moments, of whatever dynamic level, by the most reticent of controlled vibratos. These particular resources are of course not available to Gwenneth Pryor; but with every resource proper to her instrument she partners de Peyer, in the body of the programme, something like perfectly. The quality of the recording is also very good indeed, with production extending to an informative sleeve-note by Max Harrison (on whom Harvey's Gershwin allusions will not have been lost!). On all counts the record is strongly recommended.'