How casually we take for granted the amazing, hard-won skills of our professional instrumentalists! Bruce Hebblewhite and Cliff Jones brought their horns and their skills to the U.R.C. on 27th May for the St. Helens Sinfonietta’s first Lunchtime Recital of 2009.

Cliff, in explaining the horn’s maze of tubing and the way the sound is produced (not by “blowing”!), fitted his mouthpiece to about seven feet of builder’s plastic piping and played a bit of the Trumpet Voluntary on it – recognisable, though far from in tune. That’s how early horn-players had to play their limited scales – with just subtle changes of lip pressure, plus a hand up the spout to vary the tube length a bit. Nowadays valves give a full and wide chromatic range, but the old skills are still vital, and players still have a hand up the spout, seemingly nullifying the wide and beautifully engineered “bell”. So mysteries remain.

The two horns fanfared spendidly in Dauprat’s Allegro agitato and Handel’s Sing Unto God, and some great dexterity was on show in other duets and solos, but the highlights for me were gentler lyrical numbers, like Chabrier’s ambitious concert piece called simply Larghetto (Bruce) and the exquisite Mendelssohn Nocturne (Cliff, who also gave us Walking In the Air as a touching little encore).

Denise Burrows’ first instrument is the oboe, which makes her virtuosity as a pianist all the more startling. Several pieces in this recital were originally written for horn(s) and orchestra, so her ten nimble fingers were kept fully – at times hectically – occupied, with never a one put wrong. As solos she gave us the two Arabesques of Debussy, a composer whose wonderfully fluid and delicate piano style she completely understands, and can convey to us even on a less-than-perfect piano.

Ted Kirk