Tree Of Life CD

SOMM Recordings' collaboration with celebrated clarinettist Emma Johnson MBE began in 2016 with Emma Johnson & Friends [SOMMCD 0156]. A second release with her ensemble [SOMMCD 0190], including a critically acclaimed live recording of the Schubert Octet, was praised for it's 'charismatic playing' (Gramophone) and 'the obvious pleasure that they take in working as a team' (BBC Record Review). This new collaboration, Tree of Life, features Emma Johnson as soloist and conductor with the Orchestra for the Environment. In addition to being ' one of the most prolific and well-known clarinet soloists of the past quarter century' (The Clarinet, USA), Emma Johnson is a composer. Her four-movement clarinet concerto Tree of Life, about the climate crisis, was first performed in 2023 by the Orchestra for the Environment, which was founded by Emma Johnson and her husband, double bass player Chris West, for this world premiere. Hand-picked from the country's finest musicians and ensembles, the orchestra presents concerts that highlight the beauty of nature and the need to take action to combat climate change.Emma Johnson's other multi-movement work on this release is her Folk Song Set. In her version of the Irish song The Lark in the Clear Air, the clarinet gradually incorporates the trills, ornaments, and scales first played by the strings to mimic lark song. In Down by the Salley Gardens, based on W.B. Yeats, the clarinet breaks free from the folk melody in a passionate outburst before ending with a pianissimo reiteration of the tune's final phrases. Emma Johnson's setting of Tom He Was a Piper's Son definitely emphasizes the humour of this English rhyme.Two other compositions by Emma Johnson are Godafoss (Waterfall of the Gods) for full symphony orchestra inspired by her visit to this magnificent Icelandic waterfall in 2025; and Whale Song, which she describes as 'an attempt to capture whales' haunting vocalisations and to convey the majesty and mystery of these mammals using the might of the symphony orchestra.'Arrangements by Emma Johnson include Giacomo Puccini's Crisantemi, which conjures the flowers often used to express grief at funerals in Italy. Her version for clarinet, strings, percussion, and harp of Gershwin's Walking the Dog (later published as Promenade) is a delicious clarinet solo she is often asked to play as an encore.Further enhancing this release of nature-inspired works, Gustav Holst's three-movement Brook Green Suite pictures the little park opposite St Paul's Girls' School, where he taught. The pure melodic simplicity of Edward MacDowell's To a Wild Rose, the first of his Woodland Sketches, reminded him of the wild roses growing near his composing hut. The Chorale for Strings, harking back to medieval plainchant, is by Richard Stoker, whose trust supports the Orchestra for the Environment.