Visceral virtuosity

Opening with William Barton’s compositional Gift and dedication to the memory of one’s breath, this ethereal and panoramic work evokes the dawning of time, the wind gently travelling across the earth and rising to the sky, sharing the journey with the eagle.

Samuel Barber’s poignantly anthemic Adagio appears in its rarely heard original quartet setting – embraced by its lesser known yet equally affecting Molto Allegro movements – followed by David Griffiths’ dashing displays of technical and expressive “aircrobatics” in Carl Maria von Weber’s stunningly virtuosic monument of the clarinet quintet repertoire.