I've recently been discovering eighteenth century British music - and what a wealth of wonderful stuff there is which we British folk don't even know about, let alone have the chance to hear! James Hook, for instance, who was musical director of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens for almost fifty years and wrote 2000 songs for performance there, has written the most delightful, charming, thoroughly pleasurable clarinet concerto recorded here (as well as an equally memorable piano concerto of which there are now several recordings) -- it's astounding that we don't know such pieces better. It's terribly sad that the inherited establishment view of eighteenth century British music more or less stops at Handel, J C Bach and 'Rule Britannia'. This music is fairly lightweight, certainly - but then this was the Rococo period when 'lightweight' wasn't a label of opprobium, and by any standards I'm aware of this is good music and vastly enjoyable.
I'm not so sure about the inclusion of the Mahon duets for basset horn: they're pretty good, but I'd have preferred some more wind concertos like the wonderful Hook and Mahon clarinet jobs here. The performances are wonderful, spiky, vigorous, graceful - everything the music seems to ask for is provided.
Love it!!
