Albums2024
All albumsLoeffler · Debussy
Forgotten Sounds
Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet
DelosReleased 7 June 2024
Charles Loeffler’s forgotten Octet gets its debut recording thanks to clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson.
Notes
In April 2020, Graeme Steele Johnson discovered the unpublished manuscript to a forgotten, 125-year-old work by the Berlin-born, Boston-based composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) in the archives of the Library of Congress. Unpublished, unrecorded and unheard since 1897, the piece is scored for an octet of two clarinets, harp, string quartet and double bass, and was premiered at Boston's Association Hall by the Kneisel Quartet and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. One reviewer present “[could] hardly say enough” about the Octet, writing that “the work took nearly everyone by storm.” A second performance took place the following month, in March of 1897, at the home of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Incredibly, the piece was never heard again.
Track list
Siwoo Kim plays the marked tracks
Claude Debussy
- 1Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faunearr. Graeme Steele Johnson10:01
Charles Martin Loeffler
Octet
- 2I. Allegro moderato10:59
- 3II. Adagio molto9:57
- 4III. Andante – Allegro alla zingara10:24
- 5Timbres oubliésarr. Graeme Steele Johnson and Bridget Kibbey3:53
Total45:14
Press
“The performance is superb and richly recorded, and I’ve been listening to it obsessively.”
Gramophone
Read the review
Credits
- Loeffler: Octet for two clarinets, harp, two violins, viola, cello and double bass
- Graeme Steele Johnson, David Shifrin, clarinetsBridget Kibbey, harpStella Chen, Siwoo Kim, violinsMatthew Lipman, violaSamuel DeCaprio, celloSam Suggs, double bass
- Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
- Graeme Steele Johnson, Ji Weon Ryu, Han Lash, Bora Kim, Rachel Loseke, Matthew Cohen, Yun Han, Kohei Yamaguchi
- Loeffler: Timbres oubliés
- Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinetBridget Kibbey, harp
- Arrangements
- Graeme Steele Johnson (Debussy); Graeme Steele Johnson and Bridget Kibbey (Timbres oubliés)
