Joseph Horovitz CD reviews

GRAMOPHONE - JANUARY 2009
'A tardy but tasty tribute to Horovitz featuring a Couperin sandwich'
I gave a warm welcome to a Dutton CD of four concertos by Joseph Horovitz (11/07). This Carducci Quartet collection spotlights very different aspects of a composer who, though born in Vienna, has graced the British music scene for 60 years. Varied in style though the concertos are, they're all very much on the lighter side. That mood is carried over into the 1957 Oboe Quartet, in which the composer draws attention to the instruments's pastoral nature. The tuneful finale especially might be an expression of the joys of a shepherd tending his flock.
The remainder of the music here is very different. Of five string quartets, Horovitz's first three were student works. The Fourth (1953) is a dark and disturbing composition that emerged after Horovitz had devoted four years largely to light-hearted opera and ballet music. If that was a case of striking an emotional balance, the deeply restless, single-movement Fifth (1969) reflects memories of the composer's boyhood emigration. Its sponsors, its dedicatee (Sir Ernst Gombrich) and three of its first performers (the Amadeus Quartet) were also Jewish refugees.
The Couperin Fantasia is another sometimes morose work, noteworthy for its 11-solo-string-part writing. With Couperin's theme framed by one of Horovitz's, the piece attracted from one radio announcer the description of a 'Couperin sandwich'. The whole collection may indeed be said to make another tasty tribute to a composer too long neglected on CD.
Andrew Lamb

**** BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - JUNE 2008
Strongly and beautifully crafted works, full of an almost Tippett-like 'joie de vivre'. The 'Couperin Fantasia' is a coruscating treat. Excellent performances, too.

JOSEPH HOROVITZ: Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin*; Oboe Quartet; String Quartets Nos 4 & 5 Carducci Quartet and Ensemble*
Nicholas Daniel, Oboe
Carducci Classics CSQ 6482 57'02"

We have become used, during the last decade or so, to symphony orchestras having their own record label, such organisations issuing live concerts or studio recordings themselves, but I don't recall many string quartets, if any, apart from the present ensemble starting a record label of their own. Having heard an earlier disc from the Carducci Quartet and been impressed thereby, I give the highest praise to this outstanding new release of chamber music by Joseph Horovitz. It is good news that this fine and very gifted composer has been receiving recently a too-long-delayed general recognition of his art, and this exceptionally well played and beautifully recorded disc of what the composer has said are some of his more 'serious' works will further draw attention to the range and depth of his music.The music dates from between 1953 and 1969, and I find it quite extraordinary that a masterly score such as the Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin should have had to wait so long for a recording; dating from 1953, it has perhaps been sidelined, quite unfairly, by Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli from the same period, also for String Ensemble, but Joseph Horovitz's work can certainly stand comparison with the more well known Tippett score. The three other works are all equally impressive, especially the very fine String Quartets; real string quartet writing, this, although I would have preferred the final note in the Fourth Quartet to have been slightly more elongated, to bring this work to a more definite conclusion. Some may feel, as I do, that the Oboe Quartet pays homage to the composer's adopted country. It is without question a work of genuine imaginative character, perhaps 'lighter' in expression, but no less serious in compositional skill.This is a very impressive record; the playing is excellent, the recording is of high quality and the music is by a genuine and most admirable creative figure.
Robert Matthew-Walker
www.musicalopinion.com
May-June Issue 2008