OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(27 January 191516 September 2003) was an English
clarinet
The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell.
Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
tist and
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
. ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' called him "the leading clarinettist of his generation, perhaps of the century".Goodwin, Noël "Jack B nimble, Jack B quick" ''The Times'', 27 January 1995, p. 32. He was largely self-taught as a player and he performed as an amateur before being invited by Sir Thomas Beecham to join the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, England.
The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagemen ...
in 1947. He remained with the orchestra until 1963, two years after Beecham's death.
Brymer played in the
BBC Symphony
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...
and London Symphony Orchestras. He was also associated with several chamber music ensembles, and maintained a lifelong pleasure in playing jazz. He held professorships during most of the period from 1950 to 1993, first at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
, then at the
Royal Military School of Music
The Royal Military School of Music (RMSM) trains musicians for the British Army's fourteen regular bands, as part of the Royal Corps of Army Music. For more than a century and a half, from 1857 until August 2021, the school was based at Knell ...
and finally at the
Guildhall School of Music
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with dram ...
. He was a regular broadcaster, as a player and presenter and made recordings of solo works and with orchestras and smaller ensembles. He published two volumes of memoirs and a book about the clarinet.
Biography
Early years
Brymer was born in
South Shields
South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England; it is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. The town was once known in Roman Britain, Roman times as ''Arbeia'' and as ''Caer Urfa'' by the Early Middle Ag ...
rugby football
Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union or rugby league.
Rugby football started at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, where the rules were first codified in 1845. Forms of football in which the ball ...
."Jack Brymer – Obituary" ''The Times'', 17 September 2003 He hankered after a musical career, but as a profile in '' The Gramophone'' put it, "The virtual collapse of the orchestral profession when sound entered the cinema, and musicians were thrown out of work by the hundred turned his thoughts elsewhere."Wimbush, Roger "Here and There" ''The Gramophone'', May 1968, p. 33 From 1933 Brymer trained at
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...
,
London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
as a generalist teacher. He joined the teaching staff of Heath Clark School,
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...
, and in his spare time played in amateur musical ensembles. Among his fellow students at the college, and later his colleague in the amateur groups, was a string player, Joan Richardson. They married in 1939 when they were both 24. There was one son of the marriage.
Although he had no formal tuition as a clarinettist, Brymer maintained that nobody was entirely self-taught: "I learnt from everyone I heard play. Frederick Thurston and Reginald Kell unwittingly betrayed their methods to me, but I also decided that I wanted to play in certain ways that they had never done. The ability to play the clarinet is the ability to overcome the imperfections of the instrument. There's no such thing as a perfect clarinet, never was and never will be." Other clarinettists whose technique Brymer observed and learned from were Charles Draper and Haydn Draper. Brymer wrote of his predecessors, "They would have been astounded at the things they taught me, without a penny piece changing hands."
During the Second World War Brymer served in the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
. After his basic training he was promoted to corporal and posted to
Morecambe
Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England, on Morecambe Bay, part of the Irish Sea. In 2011 the parish had a population of 34,768.
Name
The first use of the name was by John Whit ...
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', 20 September 2003 When not on RAF duty he frequently played in the Morecambe Central Pier dance band dressed in his corporal's uniform. Among those he met in the Air Force was the horn player,
Dennis Brain
Dennis Brain (17 May 19211 September 1957) was a British French horn, horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served ...
, who admired Brymer's playing, and who later had a decisive influence on his career.
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, England.
The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagemen ...
. Among his principal players were Kell and Brain. The following year Kell announced his forthcoming resignation, and Brain suggested to Beecham that Brymer would be a suitable replacement. Brymer had returned to his teaching post after being demobilised from the RAF, and was incredulous at receiving a telephone call from Beecham inviting him to audition. Brymer's first reaction was to think it was a practical joke, with one of his musical friends impersonating Beecham's familiar lordly drawl. Having realised that it was indeed Beecham calling, Brymer accepted the invitation to audition. Having heard him play, Beecham appointed him to succeed Kell.His first appearance with the RPO was a week of broadcasting with them in Berlioz's opera "The Trojans". Subsequently he had the good fortune to appear in Strauss' "Don Quixote" with the composer present. Brymer recalled "an old man in a raincoat leaning over my shoulder advising me of how to play the delicate clarinet solo which comes immediately after Don Quixote has died". – Richard Strauss in the last year of his life". Many years later Brymer crossed swords with the conductor,
over interpreting Strauss. A historian of the London Symphony Orchestra wrote, "Rehearsing ''
Don Quixote
, the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...
'', Del Mar had the temerity to admonish Brymer for playing a phrase too loudly: 'Just a memory, Jack, just a memory,' Del Mar called out. 'Why are you playing it mezzo-forte?' 'Because Strauss told me to,' Brymer retorted. 'And I'm surprised that you don't remember, Norman, because you were playing second horn at the time.'"
''The Times'' said of Brymer in this period, "After his appointment to the RPO in 1947, the balding, affable Brymer was certainly Great Britain's pre-eminent clarinettist, … whose mellifluous playing style and unruffled platform manner charmed even those usually impervious to classical music." In the RPO, Brymer joined Beecham's starry line-up of wind players, Terence MacDonagh (oboe), Gerald Jackson (flute) and Gwydion Brooke (bassoon); collectively they became known to colleagues and audiences as "the Royal Family". A clarinettist of a later generation, Alan Hacker, wrote that the sound produced by Brymer and his colleagues was "expressive and instantly recognisable, even in just one solo note." With Beecham and the RPO, Brymer made the first of his three recordings of
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
's
Clarinet Concerto
A clarinet concerto is a concerto for clarinet; that is, a musical composition for solo clarinet together with a large ensemble (such as an orchestra or concert band). Albert Rice has identified a work by Giuseppe Antonio Paganelli as possibly th ...
in 1958. When the recording was reissued on compact disc in 2001, '' The American Record Guide'' said,
BBC, LSO, chamber music and jazz
After Beecham's death in 1961 Brymer and other members of the RPO including MacDonagh became unhappy about the management of the RPO. The
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
's controller of music, William Glock, invited Brymer and MacDonagh to move to the
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...
. Brymer was the orchestra's co-principal clarinettist from 1963 to 1971. He also began to play more often in chamber music. When
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.
Born in Montb ...
became chief conductor of the BBC SO in 1971, the sound he sought from his players, "avant garde, harsher, more cutting in its edge", did not appeal to Brymer. He accepted an invitation to join the
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
as co-principal with Gervase de Peyer. An example of Brymer's sound in his LSO years can be heard in a 1972 recording of
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...
. '' The Gramophone'' praised Brymer's "distinctively refined tone-colour … breathtakingly expressive" in the slow movement.Greenfield, Edward. "Rachmaninov. Symphony No 2 in E minor", ''The Gramophone'', April 1973, p. 121
In the classical chamber repertory, Brymer was associated with several groups. At various times in his career he was a founder-member of the Wigmore Ensemble, the Prometheus Ensemble and the London Baroque Ensemble. He was director of the London Wind Soloists, and a member of the Tuckwell Wind Quartet and the Robles Ensemble. Throughout his career Brymer enjoyed an interest in mainstream jazz."Brymer, Jack" ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 12 February 2012] He performed as a soloist with many of the leading British and American jazz players of the post-war decades. When the RPO was in
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
on an American tour, Brymer improvised with local jazz stars, including
Alphonse Picou
Alphonse Floristan Picou (October 19, 1878 – February 4, 1961) was an important very early American jazz clarinetist, who also wrote and arranged music. He was born and died in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Early life and education
Alphonse Picou w ...
.
Teaching, recording, broadcasting and later years
As a teacher, Brymer was professor at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
(1950–58), the
Royal Military School of Music
The Royal Military School of Music (RMSM) trains musicians for the British Army's fourteen regular bands, as part of the Royal Corps of Army Music. For more than a century and a half, from 1857 until August 2021, the school was based at Knell ...
at Kneller Hall (1969–73), and the
Guildhall School of Music
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with dram ...
(1981–93). Among his pupils at the Royal Academy was Alan Hacker, who like many players of the generation after Brymer was less attracted by the rich sound developed by Brymer, favouring instead more radical techniques propounded by
Bruno Bartolozzi
Bruno Bartolozzi (8 June 1911 – 12 December 1980) was an Italian composer and pioneer in the development of extended techniques for wind instruments.
He was born in Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region ...
, and playing styles harking back to an earlier, less mellifluous, style of playing.
During his career Brymer made gramophone recordings of all Mozart's works for wind solo and ensemble. Several works were written for him, including ''Three Pieces'' and a Clarinet Quintet by
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (10 August 1889 – 12 May 1960) was a prolific and versatile English composer. Though best known for his choral music and, in particular, songs, Gibbs also devoted much of his career to the amateur choral and festival move ...
; Roundelay by Alan Richardson; and a Clarinet Concerto by
Guy Woolfenden
Guy Anthony Woolfenden (12 July 1937 – 15 April 2016) was an English composer and conductor. He was head of music at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon for 37 years, making music an integral part of over 150 productions t ...
. Brymer was also a well-known broadcaster. His biographer, Raymond Holden, writes, "his easy manner before the microphone meant that the radio programmes that he presented for the BBC, such as 'At Home', were popular favourites".
The LSO paid Brymer the unusual tribute of mounting a special concert to mark his 70th birthday, and another to mark his 75th. By the time of the latter he had retired from full-time orchestral playing, but he continued to perform, and played at a concert given by the
English Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra spe ...
to mark his 80th birthday, at which he played Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and
Clarinet Quintet
Traditionally a clarinet quintet is a chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, plus the standard string quartet of two violins, one viola, and one cello. Now the term clarinet quintet can refer to any combination of instruments in the c ...
, and Weber's Clarinet Concerto No 1.
Brymer's last public concert was on 18 July 1997 at the Wigmore Hall in London where he performed Mozart's Clarinet Quintet with the Gabrieli Quartet. Before the performance, Brymer told the audience that the Quintet held a special importance for him and he thought it appropriate that this music should mark his farewell to the concert platform.
Brymer died in
Redhill, Surrey
Redhill () is a town status in the United Kingdom, town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead within the county of Surrey, England. The town, which adjoins the town of Reigate to the west, is due south of London Borough of Croydon, Croydon in ...
at the age of 88. His ashes were interred a short distance away in the churchyard of St Peter's,
Limpsfield
Limpsfield is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs close to Oxted railway station and the A25 road, A25.St Peter’s Churchyard , ''The Limpsfield Net'', 4 March 2006
Publications
Books
* (also published in French and German editions)
*
*