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Impressive and ultimately accessible 20th Century quartets by Welsh composer Daniel Jones (1912-1993) performed with absolute grip and certainty by the Delme ensemble. What is most remarkable in Jones is the wide dispersion of his musical intellect. The seemingly natural variety of his compositional thinking and the depth of his concentration are staggering. And perhaps this is the best way to describe these eight works: complex "concentrations." While not paralleling contemporary downlanders like Bax, Bridge or Simpson, yet venturing much further than the prototypes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich or Bartok, but eschewing the popular trend towards minimalism, Jones establishes his own unique, thought-provoking vocabulary, very much the way Beethoven did in his last quartets. These are overtly serious, emotional works, not particularly sunny in disposition, but not grim, either. The comparison with Beethoven holds true here, as well. Incidental tweaks of levity seem resigned nose thumbing at dubious fate, rather than attempts at humor. And, with both composers, there is a mystic ambience that threads through every quartet becoming integrally structural, disquieting and fascinating. - Melvyn M. Sobel
