Table Music

This sextet, dedicated to the JGO youth orchestra conducted by Helmut Oesterreich, comes with photographs of how to hold a knife and fork and how to play the spoons. How can one not be compelled to sample the musical five-course meal that is Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and Dessert? Well, the menu is probably around Grade 7 and ventures onto the guitar body. Most movements are rhythmically straightforward, though Dinner might cause indigestion, being mainly in 7/8 time. How does it sound? Breakfast begins sleepily but an insidious clock-like beat builds up, reminding me oh so much of scoffing breakfast before running for the bus. Brunch is a little snack, but so very sad, with a plaintive melody played in four consecutive octaves - where have we heard that tune before? Lunch breaks out the cutlery and some tambor but there's that theme again; twice as fast and served on a bed of triplets. Dinner must be soup, because the spoons arrive and even have a solo and there's that theme again. . . Dessert brings everything together - themes and cutlery, a napkin and some joyous writing. Does the recurring them repeat on you like a pickled onion? No, the suite works because each movement is a little more glorious than the one before. There are some quite technically difficult passages in Lunch but there are some easier parts too, and carefully positioning of the players around the table would enable a mixed ability sextet to enjoy a satisfying musical meal together. Quite, quite enjoyable!
(Derek Hasted, Classical Guitar Magazine, August 2003)