Colin Bradbury, who has died aged 90, was the BBC Symphony Orchestra clarinettist whose dazzling cadenza in Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs held audiences breathless at the Last Night of the Proms for many years. He became principal clarinet in the orchestra in 1960, and continued until his retirement in 1993.
During the 1970s, with Pierre Boulez as the principal conductor, the orchestra achieved worldwide prominence. Bradbury described it as “a unique time, musically and orchestrally – a golden age”. Away from the orchestra, he became an outstanding exponent of the clarinet’s lesser-known 19th-century repertory, in recital and on record.
