In that unthinkable Age of Grace enjoyed by all mankind before the dawning of the twentieth century before atonality and the H-Bomb few composers thought of writing for the clarinet in the upper part of its register, and the high piccolo clarinet (in E flat) was practically unknown outside the military band. Stridency was uncivilized. Mozart, Weber, Brahms, Reger—and lesser (but not undistinguished) luminaries like Romberg, Fuchs and Stanford—all favoured the clarinet for its lyrical, euphonious quality, its rich warmth of expression, and its deep broad range of tone colours.

The RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, with the support of Garth Knox (viola) and Piers Lane (piano), continue their excellent survey of Stanford’s neglected chamber works with this recording of his String Quintet No 1 and Piano Quintet. Growing up in his native Dublin in the 1850s and ’60s, Stanford was no stranger to high-quality chamber music, even if visits to Ireland’s capital by pre-eminent executants of the genre were sporadic.

At the height of his career Sir Charles Stanford held a leading position in British music, not only as a teacher of many of the most important composers of the new generation, but as one of the most significant British composers – the other was Sir Hubert Parry – to have emerged immediately before Elgar. Chiefly remembered today for his Irish Rhapsodies, Seven Symphonies and Clarinet Concerto, Stanford composed many chamber works, including several for clarinet written in what might be described as a ‘Brahmsian’ idiom. The Piano Trio No. 3, the last of three which span Stanford’s mature career, was written as a tribute to friends lost in the First World War.

The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can’t be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that? They would probably not have believed that those two pillars of the old musical establishment would still be standing by in 1999. And in fact how well very nearly all these composers stand! Quilter’s mild drawing–room manners might have been expected to doom him, but the three songs here – the affectionate, easy grace of his Tennyson setting, the restrained passion of his ‘Come away, death’ and the infectious zest of ‘I will go with my father a–ploughing’ – endear him afresh and demonstrate once again the wisdom of artists who recognise their own small area of ‘personal truth’ and refuse to betray it in exchange for a more fashionable ‘originality’.