Dennis Brain is generally accorded a place among horn players akin to that occupied by Heifetz among violinists. This CD does nothing to contradict that, nor does it significantly add to what we already know of Brain’s talents. The Beethoven Quintet, for example, is most notable for Benjamin Britten’s pianism, simple and full of repose in the Mozartian introduction to the work and in the Andante cantabile movement, where he beautifully sets the tone for the lovely solo turns of the wind players. Taken from a 1955 concert performance at Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival, the muddy sound stifles a good if somewhat decorous performance lost in the haze of murky engineering confined to a none-too-distinct midrange.
The Gallic-inspired Sextet by Gordon Jacob occupies a different sonic universe, recorded with ample presence two years later in the controlled environment of BBC’s London studio. Despite some distortion in loud passages, the instrumental colors, with their top and bottom registers adequately reproduced, come through with lively involvement. The work itself is in five movements, including a witty Minuet that’s like a genteel dance in a doll house, a Cortège movement of some weight, and an austere if brief adagio Epilogue to the concluding Rondo.
The most substantial piece on the disc is the Hindemith Horn Sonata, where Brain’s golden tone soars brilliantly. But his superb playing is almost overshadowed by the Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood, who’s dazzling as his spirited keyboard partner. A poignant note is struck by knowing that Mewton-Wood committed suicide later in 1953, the year the work was recorded, and that Brain died in a car accident in September 1957, a few months after recording the final work on the disc, Gilbert Vinter’s Hunter’s Moon. Vinter’s brief five minutes offers harmless movie music sandwiched between sections of light-hearted virtuoso horn work, which, not surprisingly, Brain tosses off with aplomb.
