Read Gainsford & Richard Spece - Music for Clarinet and Piano (2014)

Forgotten Gems is an assemblage of four previously unrecorded works whose stimulating and demanding character are uniquely suited to the dynamic energy of the Richard Spece/Read Gainsford duo. Marcel Mihalovici’s Sonata inhabits an exceptionally powerful and sometimes raucous world of rhythmically innovative neoclassicism, while cutting-edge composer William O. Smith, also known as Dave Brubeck’s colleague Bill Smith, is noted for his ground-breaking use of clarinet multiphonics. Truth in expression and honesty characterise Iain Ellis Hamilton’s work, and George Frederick McKay’s Sonata is one of his final predominantly tonal pieces before he embarked on a more atonal style and became mentor to the likes of John Cage and William Bolcom.