COMPOSERS: Marsh
LABELS: Chandos
ALBUM TITLE: Marsh
WORKS: Symphonies Nos 2, 6, 7 & 8; Coversation Symphony for Two Orchestras
PERFORMER: London Mozart Players/Matthias Bamert
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 10458
Chandos’s ‘Contemporaries of Mozart’ series continues to delve into forgotten corners of the 18th-century repertoire. John Mash was four years Mozart’s senior, and died in the same year as Schubert (1828). He was a gentleman composer par excellence: having trained as a lawyer, he was able to devote himself exclusively to music after inheriting an estate in Kent. His prodigious output included some 40 symphonies, though only a handful have survived. Among those recorded here are a Conversation Symphony for two orchestras; and a ‘hunt’ symphony, complete with horn-calls as the meet assembles, and a middle movement depicting the ‘Setting out from Home (trotting and occasionally cantering) – The Fox discover’d, &c’. Musically more ambitious is a D major Symphony of 1796, with a slow introduction beginning in the minor, clearly written under the influence of Haydn’s London Symphony No. 104, first performed in the previous year. However, Marsh’s musical invention is generally rather thin, and although the pieces are pleasant enough, they’re unlikely to leave a lasting impression. As always in this series, the London Mozart Players under Matthias Bamert provide impeccably stylish performances. Misha Donat