John Alexander Brymer OBE (27 January 191516 September 2003) was an English clarinettist and saxophonist. The Times called him "the leading clarinettist of his generation, perhaps of the century". He was largely self-taught as a player and he performed as an amateur before being invited by Sir Thomas Beecham to join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947. He remained with the orchestra until 1963, two years after Beecham's death.

Brymer played in the BBC Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras. He was also associated with several chamber music ensembles, and maintained a lifelong pleasure in playing jazz. He held professorships during most of the period from 1950 to 1993, first at the Royal Academy of Music, then at the Royal Military School of Music and finally at the Guildhall School of Music. He was a regular broadcaster, as a player and presenter and made recordings of solo works and with orchestras and smaller ensembles. He published two volumes of memoirs and a book about the clarinet.

Biography

Early years

Brymer was born in South Shields, County Durham, in the North East of England, the son of John Alexander Brymer, a builder, and his wife, Mary, née Dixon. Brymer senior played the clarinet, and his son started to attempt to play the instrument at the age of four. He had no formal instruction as a clarinettist, but discovered music and worked out an instrumental technique for himself. The Guardian wrote of him, "Struggling with an inadequate instrument (a sharp-pitch A clarinet with a bit sawn off in the school woodwork room) and playing in local bands and amateur orchestras with people much older than himself, he learned his craft in the most practical way." While still a boy he encountered, and appreciated, a wide range of musical styles from jazz and light music to brass-bands and circuses. He hankered after a musical career, but as a profile in The Gramophone put it, "The virtual collapse of the orchestral profession when sound entered the cinema, and musicians were thrown out of work by the hundred turned his thoughts elsewhere." From 1933 Brymer trained at Goldsmiths College, London University as a generalist teacher. When not on RAF duty he frequently played in the Morecambe Central Pier dance band dressed in his corporal's uniform.

The Times said of Brymer in this period, "After his appointment to the RPO in 1947, the balding, affable Brymer was certainly Great Britain's pre-eminent clarinettist, … whose mellifluous playing style and unruffled platform manner charmed even those usually impervious to classical music."|

BBC, LSO, chamber music and jazz

After Beecham's death in 1961 Brymer and other members of the RPO including MacDonagh became unhappy about the management of the RPO. The BBC's controller of music, William Glock, invited Brymer and MacDonagh to move to the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In the classical chamber repertory, Brymer was associated with several groups. He performed as a soloist with many of the leading British and American jazz players of the post-war decades.

Publications

Books

  • (also published in French and German editions)

Video

Notes

References

  • An interview with Jack Brymer recorded in 1992 - a British Library sound recording