A Miniature Triptych is scored for brass quintet, consisting of two trumpets, horn, tenor trombone and tuba and is cast in three movements. The first, entitled 'Lost', is slow, ruminative and bathed in half-lights, with enigmatic melodic and harmonic shifts and dramatic use of muted trumpet and flutter-tongue effects. Appropriately, the movement ends on a question mark. It is followed by the tense and edgy 'Searching' central movement. The overall mood here is anxious and turbulent, with frequent shifts in tempo. A tender lyrical phrase tries to break through the relentless, repeated-note fanfares. Eventually, the songlike phrase triumphs and the movement ends quietly in a spirit of cautious optimism. 'Found' begins with a sombre, recitative-like trombone soliloquy, but the movement's main section is buoyant and ultimately affirmative. When Lloyd was asked about the intriguing titles for each of the three movements, his characteristically whimsical, throwaway response was, 'Well, it's a general sort of human situation isn't it? We're always being lost and, hopefully, we're being found'. Yet, the scope and seriousness of the music suggests something more resonant and the listener might agree with Donald Johns in his review of the score, when he remarked that the piece, 'features good, solid craftsmanship, and plenty of display opportunities for each instrument in the ensemble', going on to observe that a 'successful performance would require a mature group of experienced players'.

The HMS Trinidad March was composed for the ship on which George Lloyd served during the Second World War and became, in his words, "the official ship's march". When HMS Trinidad was commissioned on 14 October 1941, bandmaster Harold A Davis asked George to write the ship's official march. Unbeknown to Harold, a friend of the ship's captain, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, had also been invited to write a march. The captain agreed to listen to both men's marches and decide which was to be used. Vaughan Williams' march was not popular with the bandsmen and when both pieces were premiered in the ship's aircraft hangar, the captain announced that George's music would be adopted as the HMS Trinidad's official march. George's rousing march echoes the role of the Fantasia on British Sea Songs traditionally played at the Last Night of the Proms, with it's links to the Navy and it's catchy tunes and up tempo rhythms, which encourage audience participation.

Gavin Higgins' music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with it's own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It's a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coal mines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with it's sounds, it's colours and it's stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. Almost as soon as he could speak, Gavin was given a cornet to blow and grew up playing in the brass band conducted by his grandfather and populated by most of his family. A scholarship to specialist music school in Manchester and subsequent study at the Royal Northern College of Music meant that he moved on to the orchestral French horn. Now, as a composer chiefly working in the orchestral and opera world, Gavin still writes for brass bands and has even put his two musical traditions on the stage together in an award winning Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra. But the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn - Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish - mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self.

Hurlstone's Cello Sonata in D major (1899) was written for the noted cellist and composer May Mukle. In his review of the score, Havergal Brian opined that Hurlstone's sonata 'shows ripe and mature musicianship. The Adagio Lamentoso is unusual in it's sustained eloquence. The slow movement and the lovely final Rondo standing out in a rare and attractive work'. The manuscript of Swinstead's Cello Sonata was discovered by the pianist Clive Williamson, while he was clearing the house of Vivian Langrish and his wife Ruth Harte, who were friends of Felix Swinstead. It is possible that this F major sonata may have been written just before the composer's death and never given a public performance. According to Lionel Handy, Ruth was 'a second study cellist and Swinstead may have thought a run-through, if not a performance, might be possible, but there is no record of any performance nor date of composition as yet'. Doreen Carwithen's Cello Sonatina (1944) draws upon the stringed instrument's sonorous, lyrical qualities. The often striking piano material is crucial to the unfolding narrative, rather than offering mere accompaniment and creates a genuine dialogue between the two protagonists. Bridge's two-movement Cello Sonata was begun in 1913, but not completed until 1917. Bridge always looked fondly upon the Cello Sonata, which has proved to be one of the composer's most popular chamber works and remains the most regularly played of all his substantial pieces for two players.

Classical Music

Aubade, a fantasy for two pianos, was written during the summer of 1971, for John Odgon and Brenda Lucas. It is in one continuous movement, divided into sections, linked by an introductory theme. The titles of the eight sections are: Introduction; Dance of the Charcoal Burners; The March of the Tin Soldiers; Love Duet; Waltz; Bells, Monks and Lutherans; Moths; Finale. As Edward Seckerson observed of Aubade, 'It's a fun piece, easy on the listener, demanding for the soloists'

Lloyd completed his Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death of the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece can be discerned a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument's inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer's expressive needs and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd's most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings. � Paul Conway

As a violinist, Lloyd was drawn to stringed instruments rather than the keyboard. His wife, Nancy had a very different attitude to the piano, however. Having been brought up listening to records of Alfred Cortot, among other great pianists, she had developed a genuine passion for the instrument. She was always urging her husband to write a piano concerto, but it was not until the early 1960s that those years of persuasion paid off and Lloyd wrote Scapegoat, the first of his series of four piano concertos. Now the composer had overcome his previous aversion to the keyboard, as he put it, 'Suddenly, everything I thought of, I thought in terms of the piano'. From this dramatic change of heart emerged several works for solo piano. � Paul Conway

It is significant that, when Lloyd turned his attention to writing concertante works for the violin, he avoided using full orchestral forces. His sensitivity to issues of balance and scrupulousness in scoring in his operas was matched by his determination that the solo instrument in his concertos should not be overwhelmed by thick orchestral textures. As he put it, 'I don't really like the relationship between the violin and the big modern orchestra. I hate to hear that poor little fiddle being totally swamped'.

Lloyd completed his Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death of the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece can be discerned a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument's inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer's expressive needs and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd's most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings. � Paul Conway

It is significant that, when Lloyd turned his attention to writing concertante works for the violin, he avoided using full orchestral forces. His sensitivity to issues of balance and scrupulousness in scoring in his operas was matched by his determination that the solo instrument in his concertos should not be overwhelmed by thick orchestral textures. As he put it, 'I don't really like the relationship between the violin and the big modern orchestra. I hate to hear that poor little fiddle being totally swamped'.

Lloyd completed his Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death of the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece can be discerned a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument's inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer's expressive needs and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd's most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings. � Paul Conway

It is significant that, when Lloyd turned his attention to writing concertante works for the violin, he avoided using full orchestral forces. His sensitivity to issues of balance and scrupulousness in scoring in his operas was matched by his determination that the solo instrument in his concertos should not be overwhelmed by thick orchestral textures. As he put it, 'I don't really like the relationship between the violin and the big modern orchestra. I hate to hear that poor little fiddle being totally swamped'.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.