Two of these three works (the Divertimento and the Harmonica Quintet) were once available on an Argo LP (nla); once before they were two rays of sunlight in a greying world. And also once before an unprejudiced listener who did not mind the mouth-organ being called a harmonica could emerge from his listening mightily refreshed. For Reilly plays the harmonica with all the refinement of a first-class woodwind player (in fact he is, or was, a string player); and the combination of this playing with that of a first-class string quartet would have, surely, to be associated with exceedingly disagreeable music to fail to give pleasure. In fact, both these pieces were, and are, exceedingly agreeable: Jacob with a Divertimento of no less than eight short movements (one of them very short indeed—some 48 seconds); Moody with a more elaborate, but no less winning Quintet of four longer, more developed movements, often of great lyrical beauty.
If it is possible to think that the scale of this Quintet risks stretching the enjoyability of the medium somewhat the same is certainly not true of his Suite dans le style francais. Although this is, again, in four movements, those movements are individually rather shorter and lighter in style. I wish I knew just what the style francais was, in this context, or could find words to describe what I thought it might be; if analogy will help, I could suggest that if you like early Debussy piano music (the two Arabesques, for example, or Clair de lune), you will like this suite. Another favourable factor is its scoring: in this piece the Hindar Quartet take time off in favour of Skaila Kanga playing the harp, which lends a distinct air of magic to the proceedings. The combination of music, performance and physical sound could hardly be more winning than it is here.
Indeed, the programme as a whole is of the very first class, matched by similar standards of recorded quality and of production.'