Stevens manages to blend the often dominating clarinet with subtle warmth and colour with the strings, giving the Clarinet Quintet a distinctive character of its own. An important strand in Stevens’ compositional output since 2007 has been writing music for relatively neglected instruments such as the tuba, the piccolo and the bassoon, and this strand was strengthened in the autumn of 2015 when he wrote a collection of six pieces for double bass and piano, to which Chasing Shadows and Obsession belong. The Fantasy Trio (2009) is a relatively rare instance of a substantial chamber work combining the classical guitar with mainstream orchestral instruments. The Romantic Fantasy for flute (doubling piccolo), B flat clarinet, string quartet and harp (2010), is written for the same forces as Ravel’s ground-breaking Introduction and Allegro. The Romantic Fantasy is an ambitious work in one movement, an unbroken span of twenty three minutes’ music. British composer Robin Stevens (b. 1958) is a great talent who is being discovered by the global music community, due in part to the critical acclaim given to the 3 previous Divine Art albums of his music. His varied, stimulating and expressive work arises from many influences – from the music of the Romantic era, to mathematics, his faith and inspiration of his teachers, and he is now producing substantial works for varied instrumental groupings, which are modernist and original, but yet immediately accessible.
