A key figure in the British musical renaissance, Ethel Smyth was critically acclaimed for her music and writing during her lifetime. Smyth’s Sonata in C minor for cello and piano was written in 1880. The idiomatic handling of the instruments, the impressive command of form and the fluency of the melodic lines make this early work the equal, at least, of her later chamber pieces. The creative conviction of the composer Elizabeth Maconchy expressed here so eloquently, reflects her clarity of thought and strength of purpose. Her Divertimento for cello and piano was written for cellist William Pleeth and pianist Margaret Good, who gave the first broadcast performance on the BBC in 1943. The compositions of Elisabeth Lutyens are characterized by textural economy and organizational rigor. She wrote her Nine Bagatelles in 1942. The language of the work is indicative of a composer deeply connected to the music of her own era. Although Rebecca Clarke wrote most of her music in the early twentieth century, it was not until the final decades of that century that her stature was secured. Rhapsody for cello and piano is her longest and most intricate score.

Sir Edward Elgar once described the sensation of flying in an aeroplane to Frederick Delius: 'There is a delightful feeling of elation in sailing through gold and silver clouds. It is, Delius, rather like your music - a little intangible sometimes, but always very beautiful.' On this disc, Camerata Wales - consisting of some of today's finest Welsh musicians - and conductor Owain Arwel Hughes bring together not only Elgar and Delius, but also Holst, Peter Warlock and Welsh composer Arwel Hughes (father of the conductor) in a programme which is certainly both elating and beautiful. St. Paul's Suite and Capriol are both works that have proved almost impossible to sit still to while listening, while in Arwel Hughes' Fantasia, based on 'an old ecclesiastical theme', it is an elegiac melody bathed in nostalgia that sets the tone. Delius's Cuckoo and Summer Night are the most English of all English music - even though the river portrayed in the latter piece is actually French: the Loing, flowing past Delius's home near Fontainebleau. These gems are framed by Elgar's Serenade for Strings, one of his best-loved works and glowing with an identifiably Edwardian warmth throughout, and his Elegy, whose brevity (it lasts around five minutes) belies its depth of emotion.

Rarely appearing together on disc, William Walton's two symphonies are separated by some 25 years. The First Symphony was composed after his dazzling early success, beginning with Façade and culminating in two scores written before Walton reached the age of thirty: the Viola Concerto and the oratorio Belshazzar's Feast. After this, composition became more difficult, and progress on the symphony was tortuous and protracted. Nevertheless, the work has a strikingly positive tone - perhaps in celebration of the victory over the many demons and difficulties that had attended its creation. Twenty-two years later, in 1957, the musical world was a very different place, but Walton's response was not to seek solace in reflective nostalgia. It is rather as if he conceived the Second Symphony as a follow-up to his terse and bubbly Partita for orchestra, building on the confidence that the success of that score had given the always self-doubting composer. Owain Arwel Hughes, who conducts the present recording, first made his name with an electrifying televised performance of Walton's Belshazzar's Feast which received a notable accolade from the composer. During his distinguished career Hughes has recorded a number of discs for BIS, including a complete cycles of the 13 symphonies of Vagn Holmboe. In the French magazine Répertoire his 3-disc series of Rachmaninov's symphonies was described as 'the great modern Rachmaninov cycle', while the reviewer in International Record Review stated that 'Hughes is the first conductor to convince me that the First Symphony is on a par with its two successors.' On this recording he brings Walton across the English Channel and conducts one of the leading French orchestras, Orchestre national de Lille, for their first appearance on the BIS label.