Ensemble Concertante at Lunchtime Live!

Ensemble Concertante, Portsmouth Cathedral, September 26 

After last week's Lunchtime Live when Sachin's set brought the light from outside in, today Ensemble Concertante did the same for a breezy day with their four clarinets providing the wind indoors.

The Overture to The Marriage of Figaro lent itself well to its arrangement through Spencer Bundy's bass mixing sustained notes with ornament until the trilling finale. For the most part it is Rob Blanken in the lead part but 'ensemble' is the operative word and the combination glowed in the Allegro from Clare Grundman's Caprice. Clare was male, not female, it transpires and one must try not to take anything for granted.

That glow was maintained throughout the set which continued in jazzy style, making the case that the Mozart concerto notwithstanding, it is at least as much such an instrument as 'classical'.  Mack the Knife passed the tune around at a leisurely tempo with no need for Ella to improvise the words before the billowing Polly's Song with Jen Flatman, Naomi Rides and the bass man in an intricate trio in the middle and The Cannon Song by Kurt Weill which had more of the feel of the next whisky bar. 12th Street Rag was moved from its customary finale position before a Klezmer Triptych, arr. Mike Curtis, was yet more atmospheric in its traditional stylings of an age-old, somehow melancholy party until flying in Freylacher Bulgar.

Spencer's light-hearted commentary assumed that opera was forbidding and that everybody loved Gershwin but that's not how it is for me. His Walking the Dog swung loosely, however, to complete a brief survey of C20th jazz.

New to Concertante were three Songs of the British Isles, arr. Richards & Wood but not those of Rolling Stones fame. The Londonderry Air had Jen, Naomi and Spencer sighing beneath Rob's melody, Paddy Green Shamrock Shore had a variety of things going on in an unconventional arrangement and an ersatz Blaydon Races, if only 'ersatz' meant what I'd like it to mean which would suggest something off-kilter or fractionally askew. It was an interesting way to finish, not being the big send off or the lesser heard quiet ending but somewhat more arty than most renderings of it on Tyneside, I'd think.

What Concertante bring with them is no little sense of good fun. It's one of the things the clarinet does best.