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Timothy Orpen
Clarinet
- Lichfield Festival: Australian String Quartet with Timothy Orpen
- Phil Preece - The Lichfield Blog
"St Michael’s on Greenhill is one of my favourite Festival venues, its friendly warmth and great acoustics just right for small music ensembles, so tailor-made for the award-winning Australian String Quartet.
The ladies’ first offering, Cantilene Pacifica by fellow-Aussie Richard Meale, was a nice opener, .......
Their second offering was a more popular choice, Mozart’s Quintet in A for clarinet and strings, K. 581 and for this they were joined by clarinettist Timothy Orpen who has an amazing mastery of this difficult instrument. In his hands it came alive with a happy sound uncannily like a laughing human voice. For the opening Allegro he created an array of wonderfully rich tones, lively, liquid, tender, playful and funny before moving on to the trance-inducing melodies of the Larghetto. After its sublime pathos came the lovely Menuetto leading to the final Allegretto with its sudden changes of tempo scattering impossible notes both high and low. Outstanding."
"The beautiful clarity and intelligence of this performance made for a truly uplifting afternoon of artistic excellence."
- Feast Served Up by Two Talented Young Musicians
- Robin Gregory, 30/4/10 - Eastbourne Herald
APRIL 20 at the Gold Room was an evening which will long be remembered as a feast served up by two talented young musicians: clarinettist Timothy Orpen and pianist Alison Farr.
Both overcame initial extraneous noise from elsewhere in the Winter Garden by the simple expedient of ignoring it and playing their programme of Austro-German music so well that the audience ignored the distraction too.
Mozart's Violin Sonata K378 wore its clarinet transcription well. Both performers showed great expressiveness in the long, melodic lines of the second movement, and relished the rhythmic vitality of the third movement finale.
Timothy then played unaccompanied a contemporary work by Widmann: fiendishly difficult, with recurring multi-phonics and dazzling runs. Whereas one feels that in some modern pieces the soloist could get away with any and every error, this (even at first hearing) was shapely and logical, and there was no doubt that we had the right notes, in the right order, with the right tempi.
It was musical show-off at its most arresting. The first half ended with Schumann's 1849 three-movement Fantaisiestücke. The song-like melodies led tenderly into the confident assertiveness of the finale, clarinet and piano in perfect accord.
Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) has fallen off today's radar. Prolific and successful in his day, he deserves re-discovery: and his four-movement Undine Sonata (originally for flute) was given an enticing outing. Possibly pianists discourage clarinettists from including it, for the piano part is very demanding. No problems on this occasion: the Orpen/Farr duo was fully in command of the compelling, melodious and surprisingly haunting music.
The better-known work with which they ended the evening, Weber's Grand Duo Concertant, is even more of a pianistic challenge, but the performance was a collaborative treasure, every nuance well-digested, every difficulty rendered invisible.
The new Towner Gallery should be proud to have Friends who can raise money in such a masterly fashion.
- Blazing Talent
- The Times
“Given the right combination of blazing talent and invigorating sounds, the [Park Lane Group] formula can still create something fizzing. It happened last Wednesday when the Australian-born clarinettist Timothy Orpen and his piano partner Alison Farr, both acrobatic virtuosos, pranced and burbled through the fearsome demands of Maxwell Davies’s Hymnos. No leaping squawk was too excessive for Orpen…”
- Blood and Thunder
- The Classical Source
“Orpen was superb throughout in fact… They saved the real blood and thunder for the end, however, in the shape of a near-faultless performance of Peter Maxwell Davies's fiendish Hymnos (1967). Orpen's tone ranged from an astonishingly piercing top note to the barely audible depths in which the piece ends...”
- An exceptional clarinettist
- Brighton Festival Review
“…Timothy Orpen is an exceptional clarinettist surely destined for great things. He presents an exciting and diverse programme that appeals to a wide audience… kept the audience on their toes, following the story of the piece as if words were falling from his instrument… effortless playing…”
- A bright and passionate performance
- Three Weeks Magazine - Edinburgh Festival
“Opening the evening with Schubert's 'Der Hirt auf dem Felsen', soprano Lucy Crowe, Simon Lepper on piano and a particularly brilliant clarinettist Timothy Orpen gave a bright and passionate performance.”
- Consumate taste
- Clarinet & Saxophone Magazine
“…performed with consumate taste, using the liberal doses of rubato the piece requires but without excess or artifice. The sound was warm, full and immediately engaging, the sort of sound that needs no vibrato to give it interest. Awkward upper register issues were dispatched with such ease as to leave only the other clarinet players in the audience to even guess as to their difficulty. The considerable technical demands of the final page showed formidable digital dexterity that allowed shape and direction to take precedence over mechanical execution.
The Poulenc, an altogether different piece, showed an altogether different approach. Here the sound was deliberately brighter and a bit more penetrating, a sound more in keeping with what the composer may have had in mind. Rhythms were crisp and accurate but not at the expense of the longer phrase.
It was an altogether impressive debut from one of our rising young stars.”
- Bright singing tone and effortless technical mastery
- Bristol Evening Post
"In Finzi's gorgeous Clarinet Concerto, the suberb Australian soloist was always in command of the intricate score. His bright singing tone and effortless technical mastery were particularly noticable in the central Adagio....
In Weber's Clarinet Concertino, the soloist, besides displaying technical brilliance, showed a charming sense of phrasing."