Jack Brymer

Widely regarded as Britain’s leading clarinet authority until his passing in 2003, Jack Brymer once observed that “the ability to play the clarinet is the ability to overcome the imperfections of the instrument,” further noting that “there’s no such thing as a perfect clarinet, never was and never will be.” At the time he held a teaching post in a school and had only recently made his first broadcast recital for BBC Radio when his colleague, the noted horn virtuoso Dennis Brain, urged him to try out for the vacant principal clarinet position that opened in the newly formed Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947. Thomas Beecham selected him for the post, and Brymer stayed with the RPO for the next sixteen years before moving to the BBC Symphony from 1963 to 1972 and then to the London Symphony from 1972 until 1985, when he stepped down on his seventieth birthday. His three recordings of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto have long been regarded as benchmark interpretations, one of which was featured in the soundtrack to Out of Africa. He also committed to disc additional Mozart chamber and wind-ensemble works along with several concertos from the Romantic period, yet the scope of pieces he knew and performed far exceeded what he captured in the studio. Another widely recognized contribution came when he supplied the clarinet line that threads through the extended orchestral crescendo on the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Unlike most of his contemporaries, Brymer actively explored repertoire by lesser-known figures of the Classical period. He authored two books, presented radio series, and held professorships at several leading British conservatories, among them the Royal Military School of Music. Occasionally he performed jazz in London clubs, and he appeared on recordings with the ensemble led by his most prominent pupil, saxophonist John Harle.