I gave a warm welcome to a Dutton CD of four concertos by Joseph Horovitz (11/07). This Carducci Quartet collection spotlights very different aspects of a composer who, though born in Vienna, has graced the British music scene for 60 years. Varied in style though the concertos are, they’re all very much on the lighter side. That mood is carried over into the 1957 Oboe Quartet, in which the composer draws attention to the instrument’s pastoral nature. The tuneful finale especially might be an expression of the joys of a shepherd tending his flock.

The remainder of the music here is very different. Of five string quartets, Horovitz’s first three were student works. The Fourth (1953) is a dark and disturbing composition that emerged after Horovitz had devoted four years largely to light-hearted opera and ballet music. If that was a case of striking an emotional balance, the deeply restless, single-movement Fifth (1969) reflects memories of the composer’s boyhood emigration. Its sponsors, its dedicatee (Sir Ernst Gombrich) and three of its first performers (the Amadeus Quartet) were also Jewish refugees.

The Couperin Fantasia is another sometimes morose work, noteworthy for its 11-solo-string-part writing. With Couperin’s theme framed by one of Horovitz’s, the piece attracted from one radio announcer the description of a “Couperin sandwich”. The whole collection may indeed be said to make another tasty tribute to a composer too long neglected on CD.