Christopher BALL (b.1936)
Horn Concerto (2010?) [22:42]
In the Yorkshire Dales for flute, oboe, clarinet and orchestra [4:23]
On a Beautiful Day for flute, oboe, clarinet and orchestra [4:27]
Oboe Concerto (1995-96) [18:01]
Celtic Moods for flute and cor anglais and orchestra [9:52]
Invocations of Pan for solo flute and orchestra [12:36]
A Summer Day for flute and oboe and orchestra [5:13]
Tim Thorpe (horn); Paul Arden-Taylor (oboe/cor anglais); Roger Armstrong (flute);
Jonathan Burgess (flute); Leslie Craven (clarinet)
Emerald Concert Orchestra/composer
Adderbury Ensemble/composer
rec. 2002-2010, All Saints Church, Weston-super-Mare
MUSICAL CONCEPTS MC143 [77:48] 
Ball’s standard biographical sketch
tells us that he was born in Leeds, and studied clarinet and piano at the
Royal Manchester College of Music among contemporary adherents of dissonance:
Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, Goehr and Ogdon. His teachers at the Royal Academy
of Music were Jack Brymer, Reginald Kell and Gervase de Peyer. He took conducting
master-classes with Monteux, Silvestri, Mackerras, Del Mar and Solti. His
first interests in early music had him founding the Praetorius Consort with
oboist and recorder player Paul Arden-Taylor. Composition gradually wooed
and won him over and there are now concertos for recorder, oboe, flute, clarinet,
violin, cello (2) and horn.
MusicWeb International has something of a track record for reviewing discs
of Ball’s always tuneful music as you can see from the following:-
Quantum
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Feb07/Ball_QM7040.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Aug07/Ball_QM7040.htm
Pavane
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Jan03/christopher_ball.htm
A review of September’s Musical Concepts CD of the Ball Cello Concerto and
related pieces should be onsite before too long.
The Horn Concerto is a winner. It’s very much in the English pastoral
tradition as the cover of the booklet might infer. Gusty buffeting music written
perhaps to depict gale-swept hillside crests meets the stirring RVW-bluff
and robust manner. The middle movement with its delicate echoes of Tchaikovsky
Fourth’s second movement contrasts with an excitingly windblown finale rife
with hunting-calls. The attractively wind-carolling In the Yorkshire
Dales is rather Delian and just as mellifluously emollient as On
a Beautiful Day (minor typo on cover of booklet). The willowy lad
of an Oboe Concerto strides out with all the confidence of an April
morning romancer. In its central movement it finds Ball’s accustomed calming
centre of stillness. The finale has the buffeting energy and yeoman lungs
of the Horn Concerto as well as something of an Arnoldian glint and hiccup.
This recording has been reissued from the Pavane CD listed above. Peace and
misty highland scenes pervade the Celtic Moods for flute, cor
anglais and orchestra. The flute alone remains on the stage for the Invocations
of Pan which is in three movements: Pagan Piper; Pan Overheard
and Pan Piping. Two of these movements were heard on that Pavane
CD in versions for solo recorder. The music is pensive-reflective in the manner
of a classically Mediterranean pagan idyll. A Summer Day
for flute and oboe and orchestra lilts and sways in a modern take on the
Mozartean serenade.
The helpfully complementary notes are by the composer.
Let’s have more from Ball who has an attractive facility for music that charms
and dreams.
Rob Barnett
An attractive gift for music that charms and dreams.