For his new release, which follows an album of clarinet concertos, clarinettist Peter Cigleris again offers concertante works, and again two first recordings, but here the tutti forces are not the winds but the luminous strings of the London Mozart Players under the direction of John Andrews. The three works, all composed in the late 1940s, are linked by the eminent English clarinettist Frederick Thurston (1901-1953). Denis ApIvor (1916-2004), born in Ireland to Welsh parents, was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford and then at Hereford Cathedral, where he also studied clarinet, piano and organ. While there is a later version of his Concertante for clarinet, scored for ensemble with strings, harp and celesta, Peter Cigleris opens this album with ApIvor's original chamber version for piano and two percussionists (one on timpani). This early work was composed during the composer's war service in India. Many who know the name Freda Swain (1902-1985) will think of pedagogical piano solos and will be surprised to learn that the Portsmouth-born composer created some 450 serious works, including large-scale operatic, orchestral and concertante music as well as various chamber works that have sadly been neglected for far too long. Swain's "Lumine naturi" Concertino for clarinet, presented here in a premiere recording, is an expressive work in a language that relies on tonality yet is highly individual and stirringly melodic. Thurston gave the world premiere of Gerald Finzi's (1901-1956) Concerto for Clarinet and Strings at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival on September 9, 1949, and the masterpiece has rightly become the composer's most frequently performed concert work.