There is some nice
programming here, centring around, but
not wholly concentrated upon, the august
figure of Mason Jones, for over forty
years the principal horn of the Philadelphia
Orchestra. I don’t know how many performances
of the Mozart Quintet he has given over
the years but this one was enshrined
on an LP originally issued in 1979,
the year after his retirement from his
orchestral position. It receives a warmly
sympathetic reading. With it is coupled
Bernard Heiden’s Quintet. Heiden was
born in Frankfurt in 1910 and studied
with Hindemith at the Hochschule für
Musik in Berlin before leaving for America
in 1935 where he eventually joined Indiana
University’s music faculty. His Quintet
was written for horn player John Barrows
in 1952 and is a thoroughly idiomatic,
splendidly written piece in four movements.
It does show the influence of Hindemith,
certainly, and with it an often open-hearted
lyricism. The second movement in particular
has an admonitory and urgent character
and a vein of neo-classicism running
through it as well. His Andantino is
taut and affecting in an aloofly noble
way and the concluding Rondo is perky,
with folk influences and plenty of rhythmic
joie de vivre and energy.
The Turina, sans
Mason of course, makes an invigorating
disc mate. The Piano Quartet dates from
1931 and is shaped in slow-fast-slow
fashion. The opening movement is saturated
in folk lyricism, the piano primus inter
pares at such moments in laying down
rhythmic patterns and the strings responding
with pensive and slow pleading lines.
The central panel is a gloriously swaying
and surging movement, caked in Spanish
drama whilst the finale opens in declamatory
fashion before the piano takes up the
strings’ theatre and softens it into
romantic flourish. The Philarte Quartet
sound thoroughly inside the idiom and
they convey it admirably and without
exaggeration.
This is one of Gasparo’s
slimline issues with the notes folded
over and tucked into the casing. It
makes track identification somewhat
difficult but gives you all you need
to know about the music and that’s the
main thing.
Jonathan Woolf
The
entire Gasparo Catalogue may now be
purchased through MusicWeb
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Mason Jones (horn) with the Philarte Quartet
(David Booth, 2nd violin plays viola
in the Mozart and piano in the Turina) 
