The H2 Quartet’s debut recording features three works, all originally for saxophone quartet rather than transcriptions, in more or less Romantic mode. The exception is the quartet written in 1983 by French composer Ida Gotkovsky, a one-time pupil of Olivier Messiaen. Late as this work is, it owes much less to Messiaen than to Gotkovsky’s other main teacher, Nadia Boulanger; this is audible mainly in the score’s linear clarity, and not just in the contrapuntal passages. For the most part, it sounds as if it could have been written by one of the more progressive composers active at the time Glazunov’s Quartet was premiered, in 1933. The Caryl Florio piece is a very early example of saxophone-quartet music. Florio, a colorful English-born American (real name: William James Robjohn), wrote this score in 1879 for the New York Saxophone Quartet Club, aka the Wonder Quartette. It wasn’t published until 1988, and is quickly becoming a standard item among saxophone quartets looking for original 19th-century music.

The Florio Allegro de concert actually begins with an Andante movement, wherein the H2 Quartet produces a smooth, melancholy sound. In the Allegro itself, the group turns bright, but avoids the nasality that can characterize the upper saxophones; this has the mellow character of a clarinet ensemble (or at least one that lacks a screeching E♭ clarinet). In the Glazunov, the group employs less noticeable vibrato than the French and Russian ensembles that have recorded this before, and brings an easy lilt to the 3/4 writing in the first movement, and a gentle sense of whimsy in the finale. The Gotkovsky is a half-hour, six-movement suite. I recall it as predominantly grim, but it isn’t really; that’s just the impression left by its long, imposing central movement. Here as in the rest of the program, the H2 Quartet produces very clear voicings, never letting anything turn to aural mush. The group is recorded from a close perspective, which helps, but it’s not so close that you hear much breathing or key clacking.

This disc is a fine introduction to an ensemble worth following, and the programming, while on the conservative side, is not at all hackneyed, despite the presence of the familiar Glazunov quartet.

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