[2] 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.

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.

[7] 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.

[3] He joined the teaching staff of Heath Clark School, Croydon, and in his spare time played in amateur musical ensembles.

[6] When not on RAF duty he frequently played in the Morecambe Central Pier dance band dressed in his corporal's uniform.

[3] Among those he met in the Air Force was the horn player, Dennis Brain, who admired Brymer's playing, and who later had a decisive influence on his career.

[3] Brymer had returned to his teaching post after being demobilised from the RAF, and was incredulous at receiving a telephone call from Beecham inviting him to audition.

Brymer recalled "an old man in a raincoat leaning over my shoulder advising me of how to play the delicate clarinet solo which comes immediately after Don Quixote has died".

"[7] In the RPO, Brymer joined Beecham's starry line-up of wind players, Terence MacDonagh (oboe), Gerald Jackson (flute) and Gwydion Brooke (bassoon); collectively they became known to colleagues and audiences as "the Royal Family".

[5] A clarinettist of a later generation, Alan Hacker, wrote that the sound produced by Brymer and his colleagues was "expressive and instantly recognisable, even in just one solo note.

[7] When Pierre Boulez became chief conductor of the BBC SO in 1971, the sound he sought from his players, "avant garde, harsher, more cutting in its edge",[6] did not appeal to Brymer.

[13] When the RPO was in New Orleans on an American tour, Brymer improvised with local jazz stars, including Alphonse Picou.

[13] Among his pupils at the Royal Academy was Alan Hacker, who like many players of the generation after Brymer was less attracted by the rich sound developed by Brymer, favouring instead more radical techniques propounded by Bruno Bartolozzi, and playing styles harking back to an earlier, less mellifluous, style of playing.

His biographer, Raymond Holden, writes, "his easy manner before the microphone meant that the radio programmes that he presented for the BBC, such as 'At Home', were popular favourites".

[3] Brymer's last public concert was on 18 July 1997 at the Wigmore Hall in London where he performed Mozart's Clarinet Quintet with the Gabrieli Quartet.

Before the performance, Brymer told the audience that the Quintet held a special importance for him and he thought it appropriate that this music should mark his farewell to the concert platform.