Review - Fifteen beautiful quartet arrangements by Frances Jones

I meet up with my good friend Frances Jones regularly for multi-horn weekends and we have all enjoyed her delightful horn arrangements over the years. I’m very pleased that these quartets have now been published and highly recommend them to anyone wishing to add variety and originality to their horn quartet repertoire, whether for the sheer fun and enjoyment of them, or as performance pieces. All are suitable for players of various abilities.

These arrangements for four horns include a wide variety of gems such as O for the Wings of a Dove, Country Gardens, Londonderry Air, Pizzicato Polka, The Pirate King, Salut d’Amour, Smoke gets in your Eyes and extracts from the Brandenburg Concertos and Handel’s Water Music. My personal shortlist, though, definitely includes Rond-o-Mania, a medley of all four Rondos from Mozart’s Horn Concertos, skilfully combined, with a tongue-in-cheek nod to Schumann’s Konzertstück and the Teddy Bears’ Picnic too! The Policeman’s Song from The Pirates of Penzance went down really well with our audience when the horn section of Chesterfield Symphony Orchestra performed it a few years ago. 

There are 15 available at the moment – check out http://www.editiondb.com/fjonestext.htm for the full list.

As we move beyond the restrictions of lock-down, we don’t know how our future music making might be affected but small groups outdoors in the summertime seem a safe bet. So why not give your neighbours a treat this summer and serenade them with a few of these great horn quartets.

David Murray - The Horn Player, BHS, Summer 2021

 

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