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BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

The British Symphonic Collection
see end of review for track listing and performance details
various orchestras/Douglas Bostock
rec. Aarhus, Munich, Liverpool, Manchester, 1998-2005
MEMBRAN 233316 [10 CDs: circa 720:00]
 
This is an astonishing bargain for adventurous listeners who may not have purchased these discs when first issued, one by one, over the period 1998-2006.
 
Let’s not get too wound up about the title. ‘Symphonic’ is used in a North-American sense to denote orchestral music. That said there are nine symphonies here across ten discs. Add to that three concertos for orchestra on the last disc. Two of the other works are for orator and orchestra and there’s a single large-scale ballet score. The orchestras are from Aarhus, Munich, Manchester and Liverpool.
 
Bostock - an insightful conductor who defies conventional repertoire boundaries - bestrides the project. The other unifying element is the Danish ClassicO label - the originator of the series - led by Peter Olufsen. The music itself, in large part, stands beyond the bounds of conventionally accepted concert fare. The ten discs are from a series that extended to sixteen before it and ClassicO ran into difficulties. You can see the complete edition within the MusicWeb International site. If you bought those full price discs you will have the benefit of the splendidly detailed and extended liner-notes. One sacrifice you make for the irresistible Membran price is that the notes are not provided and neither are the sung texts. All you get are the track details on the back of each attractively done standard design card sleeve. No complaints. The music is what matters.
 
Let’s take the ten discs stage by stage. The first offers supplicants rare Elgar conducted by a British conductor, played by a German orchestra. Nothing wrong with any of that and it goes a long way towards demonstrating that such music has a life beyond the UK. There’s a liberal sprinkling of the finest Elgar as well as a few scrapings from the bran-tub. The three songs with orchestra amount to fragrant adjuncts to Sea Pictures. They are confidently sung by a Danish mezzo. The luxuriance of her tone is fine but her accent cloaks the words and I couldn't pick them out at all. Wagnerian in ambition and grasp, these strong songs suggest a composer who could easily, in some alternative universe, have developed in the direction of the grandest of grand opera. The Crown of India March is a cracking example of the genre - proud, resplendent, confidently swaggering - and is to be distinguished from the March of the Moghul Emperors (part of the more familiar Crown of India music). The Empire March is rather so-so, I'm afraid. The brief and extremely rare Civic Fanfare - Hereford is a memento of Elgar's success at the Three Choirs Festival and of his links with that city.
 
A Voice in the Desert is a precursor to Bliss's Morning Heroes. It is to a text by the Belgian poet and dramatist, Emile Cammaerts, and is in a translation by Tita Brand (Cammaerts' wife). An affecting artefact of the Great War it was completed in July 1915 and still has power to move. Polonia dates from May 1915 and deploys Polish tunes in a piece written at the request of the Polish conductor Emil Mlynarski who also provided the tunes. It is not totally convincing but warms up towards the end with a theme redolent of Pachelbel's Canon. This contrasts with a jaunty, Tchaikovskian, upbeat which smacks of an Imperial anthem. The Piano Concerto movement captures a spirit of gracious Grieg-like regret. This is sensitively projected by Fingerhut. The movement is (a few sketches apart) all that survives of a project long-cherished by the composer. The movement was prepared by Percy Young in 1956 and revised for a performance (Leslie Head and Leslie Howard) at St John's Smith Square in 1979. A convincing and very enjoyable reconstruction of the whole work can be heard on Dutton Epoch. It is fascinating to hear the Spanish Lady Suite as it parades a kaleidoscope of the lighter styles and influences: waltzes, Nutcracker, Valse Triste and a touch of Adam and Verdi along the way.
 
CD 2. We now make the acquaintance of two substantial symphonies running to 35-minutes-plus. Each, to all intents and purposes, is unknown even to enthusiasts. Unlike those of Stanford and Parry, Frederic Cowen's six have received little attention. Things did not start auspiciously. The first recording was an heroic effort recorded at Kosice in 1989 on Marco Polo 8.223273. This was the version of the Symphony No. 3 The Scandinavian by Adrian Leaper with the CSR State Philharmonic Orchestra. The whole impression conveyed was predominantly flat and without zest.
 
Lewis Foreman in his original notes (not included here) tells us that the scores for Cowen's first two symphonies (1870, 1875) have been lost but that the other four are available still.
 
In a performance brimming with life Douglas Bostock introduces us to Cowen's well-named Idyllic. Like the other symphony on this disc it is in four movements. It recalls, in style and mood, the Bohemian lyricism of Dvořák's Seventh and Eighth. It also has a most engaging lightness of orchestration that is part-Mendelssohn and Schubert and part predictive of Sibelius. The writing is athletic and often sunny. The material avoids the tragic altogether. This is a reading glowing with bonhommie and resilient tunefulness.
 
Coleridge-Taylor's Dvořák heritage can be discerned clearly enough in the singing graces of the Allegro Appassionato first movement of his only symphony. There were a few moments when he had me thinking of Hamish MacCunn but for the most part the expressive language approximates to Dvořák's late symphonic manner with touches of Othello and the Symphonic Variations. There is plenty of woodland delight in this work. A Croydon man, Coleridge-Taylor was from a later generation than Jamaican-born Cowen. He was a favourite of Stanford at the RCMt in relation to. Bostock and the Aarhus players lend the rambling but tunefully affable finale a sunset grandeur.
 
Now to the Delius disc. The symphonic poem 'after Ibsen' On the Mountains was sketched while the composer was on a walking holiday with Grieg and Sinding in the Jotunheim Mountains in 1889. It was premiered in Oslo in 1891. Torridly romantic it makes opulent use of a Tchaikovskian idea which may well remind you of a moment in the Fourth Symphony. The material is not perhaps as memorable as it might have been but it works well. The Mountains were to be a recurrent motif in Delius's music. They reappear in the Song of the High Hills.
 
The Seven Songs are well enough known from the Unicorn Fenby Edition recording made all of forrty years ago if not longer. Sarah Walker and Ian Partridge made a good job of them in that case. Jan Lund is more splendidly recorded with detail after detail in pleasing focus under Tony Wass's watchful controls. Lund however seems to be afflicted with a tremble which some will find distracting. Six of the seven songs had previously been set by Grieg so Delius must have had considerable confidence in their worth and his abilities. Only two (Twilight Fancies and The Birds' Story) were orchestrated by Delius. Beecham did the honours for Young Venevil and Cradle Song. Anthony Payne's specially commissioned orchestrations of Hidden Love and The Minstrel complete the picture and are perfectly in style. With the exception of The Homeward Way (by Vinje) these are settings of Bjørnson and Ibsen.
 
In 1889 Delius orchestrated Grieg's cheery Bridal Procession (Op.19 No. 2) - a strongly folk-nationalist piece. His work has great delicacy with much soloistic writing in the manner of Smetana but with a light hand completely in keeping with Delius's flighty innocence.
 
Paa Vidderne is an epic score not far short of three quarters of an hour in performance. The poem, running to 68 stanzas, is by Ibsen, here in a translation by Lionel Carley. The work is an example of melodrama: music with spoken voice. The genre was popular in the decades running up to the start of the twentieth century. In England the format continued into the 1920s and beyond. When you hear this you may think of Bliss's Morning Heroes and Vaughan Williams' An Oxford Elegy. Of these two works it is the Matthew Arnold 'Elegy' with its seeking in vain for Thyrsis the Scholar Gypsy that is most closely resembled. Peter Hall has the noble vocal bearing of John Westbrook (regular orator for EMI for the Bliss and RVW works) and he sounds less 'received BBC' than Westbrook. His delivery, always deeply sensitive, is never obliterated by the orchestra. Ultimately after tests and visions in the setting of the narrator's beloved high places he gives up all ‘valley loves’ and allegiances in exchange for a lifetime's communion with mountain, crag and high pasture. The mountain theme was to find complete consummation in 1911 in The Song of the High Hills however Paa Vidderne is satisfying in its own right and is the most finished, rounded and successful work of the four collected here.  
 
The music of Paa Vidderne is Tchaikovskian in its echoing of the passion of the lead character for his love (tr. 1-2). Shreds of themes later to mature as Walk to the Paradise Garden can be heard (00.15 tr.15) also the horn calls of Hassan's dawn and Song of the High Hills (2.03 in tr.15). The loss of self in the mountains can also be heard in the music of Vitezlav Novak and Mieczyslaw Karlowicz. These composers too were able to find their own equivalent of Wordsworth's 'visionary gleam' in the oxygen-light altitudes and wildernesses. In Delius and Ibsen's perfectly shared vision we know exactly where the gleam has fled and that the narrator has become the Thyrsis of the heights. There may be little call for such works in the concert hall but they make ideal CD listening.
 
CD 4 - Of Bax’s seven symphonies the sixth is the undoubted peak. Including this one there have been four commercial recordings: Norman Del Mar’s magnificent Lyrita now transferred to CD, Bryden Thomson’s on Chandos and Vernon Handley’s also on Chandos. Del Mar’s still stunning account is the best version despite its vintage and the oddly spot-lit recording. Thomson on Chandos is a modern recording but is afflicted with a strange lassitude. Handley’s on Chandos is part of five CD set and tends towards a slowness absent from the Del Mar.
 
Bostock captures the fantasy and adventure in an account drenched in a potent cocktail of magic and violence. He does not allow proceedings to descend into an invertebrate dream but injects urgency and conflict. Tintagel is given the best performance I have heard bar only the original Eugene Goossens set of 78s from the 1920s - reissued on Symposium. Bostock and his German orchestra are concentrated and passionate. They project a sea-spattered and urgently romantic canvas. This vies with the early Decca Boult recording and is a much better recording than the Decca. Lastly we have a recording premiere in the brightly swashbuckling Overture to Adventure written for Dan Godfrey’s successor at Bournemouth, Richard Austin. A large infusion of Coates here! It is in the spirit of many British overtures of the 1930s and 1940s having something in common with Moeran’s ENSA-commissioned Overture to a Masque. The orchestra is enthusiastic and accomplished but lacks a plush tone in the strings by comparison with Del Mar’s almost voluptuous mid-sixties Philharmonia. The recording also leans away from lush effects.
 
CD 5 Job has attracted quite a few recordings. There are two Boults, Hickox, Handley, Davis and another for Collins. The Handley is the one which I admire most for its gravity and steady splendour. The work itself has elements of the pastoral and of the apocalyptic. The present recording is a worthy alternative to the Handley and an antidote to the big and beefy accounts found among the competition. The sound of the orchestra is lean and strong, pliant and cleanly poetic. Listen to the classic rural poesy of tracks 5 and 12 echoing track 1. The slow motion decay (2:50) of Satan's Dance of Triumph [4] with its foreshadowing of Scott of the Antarctic is imaginatively handled. I was struck by the Transatlantic shades of Roy Harris striding placidly through the pages of the Saraband of the Sons of God. Even the different sound of the orchestra can do nothing for what I have always found to be the insufferable Dance of Job's Comforters [7] and the rum-ti-tum jollity of the Galliard [10] but this is no fault of the orchestra or conductor. The Lark Ascending meditation of the Introduction and Elihu's Dance are glowingly handled by the orchestra's concert-master ([1] [7]). The Pavane of the Sons of Morning is one of VW's noblest conceptions - elegant, diaphanous and vulnerable beauty. The Altar Dance is less a dance than a reflection in meditation - a dance in slow sea-swelling motion.
 
The Carol Tune Prelude [13] was written as part of VW's music for a BBC Radio dramatisation of Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. It is elevated music suffused with the tragedy and rural mysticism of Hardy's powerful story. This is, I believe, a world premiere recording. It is by no means as slight as the title might suggest and there are some surprising touches (4:28)
 
The Variations were orchestrated by Gordon Jacob from a brass band original. Jacob had previously done a similar job for another VW work, the Old English Folk Song Suite. The Variations recorded here are rather inconsequential. All the VW hallmarks are there but with exception of one moment of quiet enlightenment at 10:02 this is not a work which attracts repeat listenings. They have been recorded previously on EMI by Hickox. This is only their second outing in orchestral format.
 
The theme of CD 6 is rare Holst. Though everything here apart from all but the middle movement of the Cotswold Symphony has been recorded previously by Atherton or Boult for Lyrita. As Richard Adams commented when first welcoming this disc the Munich orchestra play very well though their massed string tone could never be termed sumptuous. The Cotswold Symphony - no doubt soused in memories of joint walking tours by RVW and Holst - is affable and unassuming rather than grand and commanding. Early works predominate in this collection though we should not forget the spicily energetic scherzo - all that was completed of a symphony Holst had been working on the 1930s. Pleasing stuff all round if not totally compelling.
 
CD 7 takes Alan Bush as its focus. His first two symphonies are here in their premiere commercial recordings on CD. Each has a political subtext or linkage. The First has each of its movements describe a process from aspiration, to greed, to frustration, to liberation. Aspiration proceeds as if in an expressionist dream while the second movement is gritty and angular - echoes of Shostakovich, Kurt Weill (his two symphonies) and even Walton. A kind of emotional constipation settles over the third movement which in its subdued mood recalls Piston. The rejoicing finale has a certain teeth-clenched searing Soviet determination about it. While the strings are not as ample as they might be this is a completely enjoyable performance and the hoarse 'tin' of the French Horns at 3.24 will bring a smile of pleasure to anyone who rejoices in Soviet performing style. This rather fierce puritanical hymn of joy was later extracted and revised as a Character Portrait - Defender of Peace as a tribute to Marshal Tito. The Symphony was premiered complete at the Proms with the LPO conducted by the composer on 24 July 1942.
 
The Second Symphony was commissioned by the Nottingham Cooperative Society and was premiered in Nottingham on 27 June 1949. It was written after serious reflection prompted by the Zhdanov decree and by Bush's attendance at the 1949 Prague Congress. The 12-tone experimentation (always a lightly applied element) of part of the First Symphony is now rejected in favour of a more folk-inflected accessibility. It is the least obscure of the four Bush symphonies with previous performances conducted by the composer, Brian Priestman and Malcolm Nabarro. The four movements retain their programme titles (unlike the First Symphony). The first is Sherwood Forest. It carries the stigmata of Britten's Grimes, of early Tippett, the Third Symphony of Roy Harris (in the strings - Harris also had Communist sympathies) and the jollity of Holst's Brook Green. The movement is notable for the prominent roles allocated to the horns. The Second movement is Clifton Grove - a broad Largo in which the writing for strings verges on the Delian. The flow is steady. From the sable tones of the strings rises a duet for cello and clarinet which harks back to Tippett. The Castle Rock movement is grippingly active with exciting rhythmic life marked out by staccato strings and crashing percussion. The finale is Goose Fair. It recaptures the folk flavour with echoes of Vaughan Williams’ Eighth. In the yearning string writing even William Alwyn is hinted at - his First Symphony is contemporaneous with the Bush Second.
 
The Second Symphony was issued in the early 1960s on a primitive sounding Melodiya LP. The composer conducted the USSR Symphony Orchestra in a live performance in Moscow on 3 October 1963. That recording while still of archival interest can now be pensioned off to the back-shelves.
 
Alan Bush also wrote two other symphonies. His last, the Lascaux, will be recorded by those tireless heroes of British music Dutton, later this year. The Third, The Byron, a work of similar duration and forces to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony had performances in the UK and in East Germany (DDR) in the 1960s but will have to await its recorded premiere until favoured by an astute and refined lottery winner.
 
We turn now to CD 8. The Arthur Butterworth work was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival, conducted by Barbirolli on 19 July 1957. It was given its London premiere at a Prom on 29 August 1958. The mood and language is an extension of the Sibelius Fourth and the Vaughan Williams Sixth. It is much influenced by bleak shores, the wilder reaches of Scotland and the winter of 1947 when ice floes appeared in the North Sea. There is a most impressive consistency of mood across its 40 minute span. The Allegro Molto Moderato (I) has the music bowling along with a figure out of the start of the Moeran symphony. Butterworth is soon exhaustively exploring a stormy scene, complete with Nielsen references, tempestuous brass and gloomy strings. The following Lento molto continues in Tapiola-like wandering; meandering in a cold daze by the side of some desolate lake. At 11:23 there is an outburst from the strings which must surely have been inspired by Sibelius 7. The third movement (Allegretto con moto) speaks of pent energy with minatory rumblings from the kettle drum. The colours are half or even quarter lit with little in the way of facile brilliance. Even the harp touches are 'whispered' as if afraid to lift their head. The finale is marked Vivacissimo e furioso and by heck is it furious! This casts the spell to the four winds with whirling Manichean violence. Whooping and careering horns and trombones evoke a storm breaking over Suilven heights towards Cape Wrath. Screams and hoots roll from the brass. At the close, bells up, the horns call out in visceral energy. This resolves into an awesome gong-stroke which sounds out like the fatal shudder of some great dark creature in its death throes.  
 
While Butterworth’s Second has been joined by recordings of some of the other symphonies on Dutton Ruth Gipps Second continues in solitary and deplorable isolation. There are four others and each of considerable moment. The Second Symphony is launched by a fast-drummed heartbeat. Then a great yearning filmic theme is unleashed on the strings only to return later. The work mixes a certain Canterbury Tales wartime pastoralism (note the solo violin passage), a Job-like calm, a toy march (echoing Dyson and Arnold) which works up a real lather of a climax, elements of folk tune, restrained soliloquising (Adagio section [11]) carried over into the Tranquillo (13) and finally a tart mixture of jollity and solemnity.
 
Malcolm Arnold’s Fifth Symphony is the centre-piece of the next disc. It’s a work of real magnificence - very emotional yet cogently structured it is a deeply moving piece. I had the privilege of sitting in on a rehearsal of the work when it was performed in 1998-99 at Stockport and I was deeply moved by the experience. Bostock is good but he is up against doughty and/or and better recorded versions from the composer, Hickox and Handley. However Bostock’s version has its fine moments in a work that invites and here receives the sobbingly cinematic treatment. Contrast is as other reviewers here have pointed out rather compromised but don’t let this put you off. The other shorter pieces are nicely done in a lighter Arnoldian vein. For me the stand-out is the Symphonic Study Machines (1951) - recycling music written in 1948 for a documentary film Report on Steel. No surprise that Christopher Palmer would arrange Arnold’s The Belles of St Trinians into a suite. It’s rollicking fun as befits the subject. If Machines has its roaring Honegger and Mossolov moments then this suite is a blood brother to Auric’s British film scores.
 
CD 10 turns to another though less common orchestral genre - the British concerto for orchestra from what you might term the Cheltenham generation. Gregson’s Contrasts is very inventive and full of colourful imagination as is expected of the format. The Hoddinott is tougher with, typically enough, dark nocturnal magic woven into its slow movement. While Hoddinott died a few years ago John McCabe is still with us and still writing - a most prolific presence and one still enduring a degree of neglect although there are now quite a few recordings. His Concerto for Orchestra is more akin to a symphony than to a display effusion. This is a serious work and McCabe leaves us under no illusions about that.
 
So ends a conspectus that is nothing if not enterprising and the price is right - in fact irresistible even for timid risk-takers.  

Rob Barnett 
An adventurous conspectus that is nothing if not enterprising and the price is right - in fact irresistible even for timid risk-takers. 

DETAILED CONTENTS LIST 
CD 1 [65:10] Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1936)
The Crown of India, op. 66
1. March
2. Hail, Immemorial Ind!
3. The Wind at Dawn
4. The Empire March
 
5. A Voice in the Desert, op. 77
6. Polonia, op. 76
 
Piano Concerto, op. 90
7. Slow Movement
 
The Spanish Lady, op. 89: Suite
8. Trumpet Call: Burlesco
9. Trumpet Call: March
10. Trumpet Call: Morning Minuet
11. Fitzdottrel
12. Fantastico
13. Trumpet Call: Sarabande
14. Trumpet Call: Bolero
 
15. Civic Fanfare (Hereford)
 
Mette Christina Østergaard (mezzo soprano)
Peter Hall (narrator)
Margaret Fingerhut (piano)
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 2000
 
CD 2 [71:51]
Sir Frederic Cowen (1852-1935)
Symphony No. 6 in E major “The Idyllic”
1. I. Allegro vivace. Più mosso. Poco più risoluto. Poco più animato
2. II. Allegro scherzando. Poco tranquillo
3. III. Adagio, molto tranquillo
4. IV. Finale: Molto vivace
 
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Symphony in A minor
5. I. Allegro appassionato
6. II. Lament: Laghetto affettuoso
7. III. Scherzo: Allegro ma non troppo
8. IV. Allegro maestoso ed energico
 
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 2005
 
CD 3 [76:18] Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
1. On the Mountains - Symphonic Poem
 
Seven Songs from the Norwegian
2. Twilight Fancies (Orch. Delius)
3. Young Venevil (Orch. Beecham)
4. Hidden Love (Orch. Payne)
5. Cradle Song (Orch. Beecham)
6. The Bird’s Story (Orch. Delius)
7. The Minstrel (Orch. Payne)
8. The Homeward Way (Orch. Sondheimer)
 
Paa Vidderne - Melodrama
9. I. Allegro con vigore
10. II. Andante tranquillo
11. III. Adagietto con voglia
12. IV. Grave
13. V. Lento, molto tranquillo
14. VI. Andante con voglia, molto tranquillo
15. VII. Allegro furioso
16. VIII. Comodo
17. IX. Lento con molto espressione
 
Jan Lund (tenor)
Peter Hall (narrator)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 2000
 
CD 4 [63:10] Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
Symphony No. 6
1. I. Moderato. Allegro con fuoco
2. II. Lento, molto espressivo
3. III. Introduction. Scherzo and Trio. Epilogue
 
4. Tintagel
5. Overture to “Adventure”
 
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 1998
 
CD 5 [63:48] Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Job - A Masque for Dancing
1. Scene I: Introduction
2. Saraband of the Sons of God
3. Scene II: Satan’s Dance of Triumph
4. Scene III: Minuet of the Sons of Job and Their Wives
5. Schene IV: Job’s Dream
6. Scene V: Dance of the Three Messengers
7. Scene VI: Dance of Job’s Comforters
8. Scene VII: Elihu’s Dance of Youth and Beauty
9. Pavane of the Sons of the Morning
10. Scene VIII: Galliard of the Sons of the Morning
11. Altar Dance
12. Scene IX: Epilogue
 
13. Prelude on an Old Carol Tune
14. Variations for Orchestra (Orch. Jacob)
 
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 1998
 
CD 6 [65:06] Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Symphony in F major, op. 8 “The Cotswolds”
1. I. Allegro con brio
2. II. Elegy (In Memoriam William Morris): Molto adagio
3. III. Scherzo: Presto. Allegretto
4. IV. Finale: Allegro moderato
 
5. Walt Whitman Overture, op. 7
 
A Hampshire Suite, op. 28, No. 2
6. I. March : Allegro
7. II. Song Without Words: I’ll Love My Love (Andante)
8. III. Song of the Blacksmith: Moderato e maestoso
9. IV. Fantasia on the Dargason: Allegro moderato
 
The Perfect Fool - Ballet Music, op. 39
10. Andante
11. Dance of Spirits of Earth: Moderato
12. Dance of Spirits of Water: Allegretto
13. Dance of Spirits of Fire: Allegro moderato
 
14. Scherzo for Orchestra (from an Unfinished Symphony)
 
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recording date unknown
 
CD 7 [71:27] Alan Bush (1900-1995)
Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21
1. Prologue: Grave
2. I. Allegro molto
3. II. Lento molto. Largo*
4. III. Allegro moderato e deciso
 
Symphony No. 2 “The Nottingham”
5. I. Sherwood Forest: Moderato. Allegro vivace
6. II. Clifton Grove: Largo
7. III. Castle Rock: Allegro molto**
8. IV. Goose Fair: Allegro moderato
 
Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra
*Weimin Zheng (violin), *Ella Brinch (viola), *Clare Gallant (cello)
**Clare Gallant (cello), **Paul Vowles (clarinet)
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 2004
 
CD 8 [64:17]
Arthur Butterworth (b. 1923)
Symphony No. 1, op. 15
1. I. Allegro molto moderato
2. II. Lento molto
3. III. Allegretto con moto
4. IV. Vivacissimo e furioso
 
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)
Symphony No. 2, op. 30
5. Moderato
6. Allegro moderato
7. Meno mosso
8. Andante
9. Maestoso
10. Tempo di marcia
11. Adagio
12. Allegro moderato
13. Tranquillo
14. Appassionato
15. Allegro
 
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 1998
 
CD 9 [60:27] Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)
Symphony No. 5, op. 74
1. I. Tempestuoso
2. II. Andante con moto
3. III. Con fuoco
4. IV. Risoluto
 
Divertimento No. 2, op. 75
5. I. Fanfare: Allegro
6. II. Nocturne: Lento
7. III. Chaconne: Allegro con spirito
 
8. Machines - Symphonic Study
 
Solitaire - Ballet
9. Sarabande: Andantino
10. Polka: Allegro non troppo
 
The Belles of St. Trinians - Comedy Suite (Exploits for Orchestra)
11. I. Prelude: Allegro
12. II. Train to Trinians: Allegro brillante
13. III. Flash and Miss Fritton: Andante moderato
14. IV. Races and Games (Tribal Warfare): Allegro
15. V. Finale: Allegro
 
Münchner Symphoniker
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 1998
 
CD 10 [67:34]
Edward Gregson (b. 1945)
Contrasts: A Concerto for Orchestra
1. I. Intrada: Majestically
2. II. Elegy: Slow and Thoughtful
3. III. Toccata: Fast and Rhythmic
 
Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008)
Concerto for Orchestra, op. 127
4. I. Vivo
5. II. Adagio
6. III. Presto
 
John McCabe (b.1939)
Concerto for Orchestra
7. I. Deciso
8. II. Adagio
9. III. Scherzino: Allegro vivo
10. IV. Romanze: Andante
11. V. Intermezzo: Giocoso
12. VI. Largo
13. VII. Allegro deciso
14. VIII. Allegro marcato
15. IX. Pesante
 
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Douglas Bostock (conductor)
Recorded in 1998