Adrian Boult brought tremendous authority to any recording he made of 20th century British works, having known the composers and often having conducted the premiere performances. These recordings, made in the early 1970s, demonstrate that age took not a bit of his musical command or energy on the podium. Boult was particularly associated with Gustav Holst (he conducted the public premiere of The Planets). Since this compilation presents some of the crown jewels of Lyrita's history, anyone with any interest in British music of the first third of the 20th century should consider this CD a mandatory acquisition. Beni-Mora is unusually picturesque and passionate; the Fugal Overture's wit and lyricism belies the impression of stodginess its title suggests; and the virtually unknown Japanese Suite charms and invigorates. The 30-year-old sound is still better--cleaner, clearer, and more natural--than most of the stuff major labels are putting out in standard CD sound today.

--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

For this monumental four-disc release, Lyrita has chosen the most influential and best loved symphonies by British composers, taken from previous Lyrita recordings. The best English ensembles are all included on this release, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. All are conducted by the most respected interpreters of British music, such as Nicholas Braithwaite, Vernon Handley, Sir Adrian Boult, Myer Fredman, Sir Lennox Berkeley, and more. Over five hours of music is included in this box set. The booklet contains fascinating and detailed liner notes by Paul Conway which give a brief biography of each of these composers, as well as a detailed history of their featured work. This release is a must have for any aficionado of British symphonic music.

This is one of the "new" Lyritas, in the sense that the recordings on this CD have never been issued before, even though they were made thirteen years ago. Though it’s a matter for regret that the recordings have lain in the vaults for so long it’s cause for unqualified rejoicing that such a delightful collection, all in sparkling performances, should now be available.

David Pyatt is an outstanding young British musician. I recall his victory in the BBC Young Musician of the year competition in 1988. At that time he was aged only 14 – he’d only taken up the horn six years earlier, I believe. He has since gone on to build a highly successful solo career, combining that with the post of Principal Horn in the London Philharmonic Orchestra, an assignment that he took up in the 1998/9 season.

All the works included here, with the exception of Ruth Gipps’s concerto were closely associated with the great Dennis Brain. I’m sure he played all of them superbly – he gave the premières of the Jacob, Arnold and Bowen works - but it’s hard to imagine stronger advocacy than all the pieces receive from David Pyatt. He’s recorded relatively closely, though not aggressively so, and not in such a way as to eclipse the consistently interesting orchestral parts. The closeness of the balance allows us to appreciate to the full his rich, round, golden tone as well as his seemingly effortless technique. This is, in short a superb demonstration of horn playing. There are other links within the programme too, besides the "Brain factor". For example, both Malcolm Arnold and Ruth Gipps were pupils of Gordon Jacob and the first broadcast performance of the Gipps concerto was given, in 1982, by Frank Lloyd, David Pyatt’s own teacher.

The concerto by Ruth Gipps seems to me to be the most serious of the pieces on this disc – not that any of them is exactly frivolous. She wrote it for her son, who gave the first performance. The first movement offers the soloist frequent opportunities for virtuosity but it’s predominantly a thoughtful movement. Unusually the middle movement is not slow in tempo; instead it’s a scherzo, featuring what Lewis Foreman memorably describes as a "thistledown tune". There’s a vivacious start to the finale but before long we reach a more lyrical and pensive section and this music alternates thereafter with livelier episodes. The accompaniment to this concerto features the fullest orchestration of the four and the scoring is consistently resourceful and interesting. Nowhere is this more apparent that in the short passage in the finale that Lewis Foreman highlights in his notes. Here, beginning at 4:30, the soloist duets with the celesta in a most imaginative and unusual piece of scoring. Like its companions on the disc this concerto cries out to be heard more often and David Pyatt is a splendid advocate for it.

He’s no less admirable in the splendid concerto by York Bowen, himself a horn player. The more I hear of Bowen’s music the more I like it and the more I marvel at its neglect. This is an inventive and tremendously enjoyable work in which a short, reflective slow movement catches the listener’s attention. The finale is cast mainly in a lively frame of mind but the romantic in York Bowen can’t resist pausing along the way for a lovely middle section in a slower tempo – and thank goodness for it.

Malcolm Arnold’s concerto is probably the best known of these concertos. Another work inspired by Dennis Brain, he gave its first performance at the Cheltenham Festival in July 1957, just a matter of weeks before his tragic and untimely death. Arnold, himself an orchestral trumpeter and therefore well versed in brass instruments, appears to write with complete understanding not just of the solo instrument but of the personality for whom he had written the work. The main material of the central slow movement is a nostalgic slow waltz that David Pyatt clearly relishes and which offers a few moments of relative repose before the headlong virtuosity of the finale.

The Gordon Jacob concerto is a delight from start to finish. The first movement frequently has the strings playing in motor rhythms but over the top of this material the soloist has interesting and lively music. There’s a substantial and lovely lyrical core to this movement and a demanding cadenza (from 7:20). The slow movement is a wonderfully atmospheric nocturne, which is imbued with a fine sense of lyrical repose. Pyatt is most eloquent here. Most of the time the finale dances along giving the soloist ample opportunity for display but there are some disarming lyrical stretches too.

This generously filled disc concludes with an encore in the shape of Hunter’s Moon. by Gilbert Vinter. This wasn’t written for Dennis Brain but he took it up towards the end of his life as something of a party piece. I hadn’t encountered it before and I found it most engaging. The outer sections, which contain a bouncy little march, frame a gorgeous cantabile central section. The whole piece breathes the atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I enjoyed the Vinter piece, but then I enjoyed the whole disc immensely. The music is of high quality and the standard of performance is consistently superb. In this last comment I include not just the marvellous solo playing of David Pyatt but also the fine support given to him by Nicholas Braithwaite and the LPO. The recorded sound is first rate and Lewis Foreman’s authoritative and enthusiastic notes are a model of their kind. For sheer listening pleasure this is one of the best discs to have come my way for a long time.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

This boxed set reassembles largely analog material from existing Lyrita CDs under a new generic grouping. Dates and locations of recording sessions are not given. Lyrita seem always to have been reticent about those details. The sound is a model of its kind – Lyrita were always able to boast glorious sound.

The freshly written liner-notes are by the authoritative and accessible Paul Conway and run to ten pages. These are not a simple retread of the original notes by other authors.

There is provocative variety to be found in this Piano Concerto box, serving up Stanford's least neglected piano concerto which is both Brahmsian and yet has a dash of Rachmaninov about it. The Finzi Eclogue is a peaceful spiritual essay - it causes no offence and imparts a blessing as it passes. The Foulds and Bridge pieces are not concertos. The former is a fantastic display of brilliance of imagination and technique while the Bridge parallels his own Oration - which is not included in these sets - in its tension and bleak expressive power. It does have its heroics but they are bitter indeed. The Vaughan Williams concerto recalls the world of his Fourth Symphony while the Rawsthorne is softer and more yielding than we may be accustomed to from this source. The Scott Poem, with its roundabout convolutions and folksong game-play, contrasts with the Busch Piano Concerto. Ireland's Legend is another Sussex ancient sorcery, quite different in its subtlety to the crowd-pleasing romantic heroics of the Moeran Rhapsody, which plants its confident feet in 1940s film piano concerto pastures; it’s very enjoyable. The last disc lets us hear again three piano concertos: early, accessible and not fully characteristic in the case of the Hoddinott and Berkeley; and fully mature in the case of Williamson’s joyously clangourous and angular Third Piano Concerto.

Generosity is the order of the day. No CD plays for less than 72:00. The price point is attractive and may well make this suitable for the intrepid and open-minded soul as Christmas presents, if the original CDs are not already on the intended receivers' shelves.

– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Classical Music

Berkeley’s first opera, Nelson, was put on at Sadler’s Wells in 1954. The others were performed by the English Opera Group which had been founded by the young Benjamin Britten, Joan Cross, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears in 1946. In the same year as the Nelson premiere Berkeley’s first one-acter, A Dinner Engagement, featured at Aldeburgh. Aldeburgh was also the scene of Ruth in 1956 and Castaway in 1967. Each work inhabits its own world, and each finds Berkeley’s musical imagination delivering new sounds to match the drama.

I still remember how exciting it was to discover these marvelous tone poems: the mysterious darkness of November Woods, the watery depths of The Garden of Fand, and of course the magnificent vistas revealed in Tintagel. This last was the most familiar, from a classic Barbirolli recording for EMI of English overtures and symphonic poems, but I suspect that this was the next Bax disc that most collectors added to their libraries, assuming they could find it. The performances remain all that one could want: atmospheric, very well played, and beautifully engineered. We've come a long way in our knowledge of this fine composer since the days when Lyrita alone carried the torch for Bax, but these recordings wear their years very lightly and still offer as much listening pleasure as when they were new. For a single-disc collection of the major tone poems, you can't do better than this. [1/10/2007]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a translation by Edward Fitzgerald of a selection of poems which were originally written in Persian and are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. There are about a thousand poems in the complete volume. British composer Granville Bantock composed this choral setting of the works. Part 1 premiered in 1906, Part 2 in 1907, Part 3 in 1909, and the complete works were performed in 1910 at Queen’s Hall. This four disc set is the only complete recording ever made of the work, and is made up of original BBC Broadcasts from 1968 and 1979.

-----

REVIEWS:

Those who want to hear Omar Khayyam in all its glorious monumentality will need to buy the Lyrita set. it’s one of the monuments in British music that needs to be heard.

– The Guardian

Del Mar’s soloists sing with urgency and passion. A hugely enterprising addition to Lyrita’s ever-growing catalogue.

– Gramophone

This lively 1979 revival of the complete work is well coupled with other less rare Bantock, especially Fifine at the Fair. Del Mar, an eminent Strauss scholar, has a sure feel for the orchestral writing of this era, well paced and translucent rather than weighty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Lyrita is back, thank God, courtesy of Nimbus, and this now-legendary recording of Malcolm Arnold conducting his own delightful English, Scottish, Irish, and Cornish Dances (plus the Sarabande and Polka from the ballet Solitaire) never has been surpassed. True, the playing isn't quite perfect. There are a couple of brass flubs here and there, but you have to strain to hear them and probably won't notice. More to the point, the sheer gusto of the interpretations (witness English Dance No. 4) and the impact of the superb engineering remain in a class of their own. Colorful, tuneful, and a delight from first note to last, this disc is a treasure whose appeal hasn't dimmed a bit since the day it was released. No self-respecting collector of English music can afford to be without it. [9/19/2006]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The London Philharmonic seemed to take Alwyn to its heart for these two eminently approachable symphonies in warm-hearted performances, recorded in crystalline detail yet with full-bodied sound.

The First Symphony was dedicated to Sir John Barbirolli and was composed in 1949. The first movement reveals a sure structural grasp (the music is always directional, always sure of where it is going); the second movement is a mercurial Scherzo revealing the LPO on magnificent, quixotic form. Accents are perfectly highlighted and there is a real sense of life coming from within. The Trio is an oasis away from the rhythmic verve of the Scherzo, making the rhythmic life the more effective when it bursts back upon the scene.

The hushed lyricism of the cello line towards the start of the Adagio ma con moto is a marvel here, phrasally tender and tonally lush. Surely this is the symphony’s peak, for it is here that Alwyn’s invention is at its most unforced. The finale, despite its ‘allegro jubilante’ marking, includes a fair few shadows that seem determined to rain on the music’s parade – things are not as clear-cut in Alwyn the symphonist as may be assumed from Alwyn the miniaturist.

The Fourth Symphony dates from a decade later. It begins in a gentle and undemanding fashion – the tonally-ambiguous melodic lines give the music a fluidity that is certainly most appealing. Climaxes are impressive (as in the First Symphony, there is no doubt as to the LPO’s dedication); the extended Scherzo (longer than the first movement, in fact) is marvellously sprightly. This gives way to the tranquillity of the finale, a tripartite Adagio-Allegro-Adagio structure, the final Adagio section of which contains the most moving music on the disc. Well worth exploring.

Booklet notes by the composer (for Symphony No. 1 only) are enlightening. Alwyn lists as his influences here as Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan as well as Schoenberg, Szymanowski and Scriabin (the latter in particular Prometheus and the Poem of Ecstasy). Actually for all its fluidity of invention, the music is not quite as exciting as that heady list might imply – but it is tremendously involving taken on its own terms. At its best it can seem an exhilarating and rewarding journey.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

The present release features a selection of Cecil Armstrong Gibbs' songs taken from the 4-album set also released by Lyrita. Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (he disliked the name Cecil so was known as Armstrong) was a prolific and versatile composer of the first half of the twentieth century. He studied under Sir Adrian Boult and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His contemporaries were Herbert Howells, Sir Arthur Bliss and Sir Arnold Bax. Known principally for his solo songs Gibbs also wrote music for the stage, sacred works, three symphonies and a substantial amount of chamber music. He gained wide recognition during the early part of his life. He continued to compose and conduct up until his death in May 1960. Putting this project together we were surprised by both the quantity and consistent quality of Gibbs' output. The popular songs fully deserve their treasured position, but now we could easily match them with a new selection - To Anise, The Cherry Tree, On Duncton Hill, The Tiger-Lily, Midnight, Slow Horses Slow, The Exile and Take Heed Young Heart might be concert winners given a chance. In them we find the same simplicity and sensitivity to text. It has been remarked more than once that performers will find the best songs among the settings of de la Mare, this rather easy simplification holds less well when, as in this collection, we can assess Armstrong Gibbs output in a more complete form.

“Eleanor Alberga was born in 1949 in Kingston, Jamaica. Her mother founded, and subsequently ran, her own high school in Jamaica and believed passionately in the Arts. Consequently, Eleanor was introduced to classical music at an early age. As a teenager she had piano lessons at the Jamaica School of Music and in 1968 she won the biennial Royal Schools of Music Scholarship for the West Indies, which she took up two years later at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying piano and singing. 2001 was a turning point when she was awarded a NESTA Fellowship and chose to give up her career as a concert pianist and concentrate full-time on composition. Her distinctive creative output encompasses instrumental, chamber and orchestral pieces, as well as works for stage and film. With its vibrant rhythms, rich harmonies and idiomatic writing for every instrument, her music has the authentic stamp of an experienced performer and an accomplished executant.” (Paul Conway)

“Although Elgar was a highly accomplished violinist, he wrote no mature string chamber music until, at the end of his creative life, he produced three major works: a violin sonata, a piano quintet and a string quartet. Both outer movements of the quartet are full of mercurial changes of mood; both end at the last minute in the major, the finale with an exhilarating display of renewed energy. In between comes an intermezzo marked ‘Piacevole’, ‘peacefully’ – a pastoral C major interlude between the two stormy outer movements. Alice Elgar was particularly fond of this movement, and it was played at her funeral in 1920. In 2002, I arranged the slow movement for string orchestra and George Vass conducted it that year at the Deal Festival. The remainder of the Quartet was orchestrated in 2010. The substantial part of the arrangement is the addition of a double bass part, but I have also thickened the upper parts in a number of places. At two points in the first movement and at the end of the Andante I have preserved the original writing for solo strings. The arrangement was commissioned by the John S. Cohen Foundation.” (David Matthews) “In 2019 English Symphony Orchestra were asked to give the official 100th Anniversary performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto. It was at that concert that Wallfisch met composer Donald Fraser, whose choral arrangement of Elgar’s Sea Pictures was being featured on the same concert. Wallfisch suggested that perhaps Fraser arranged and orchestrate a few of Elgar’s shorter works for cello and strings, and over the following year the project expanded in scope to finally comprise the eleven-movement suite heard here.” (Kenneth Woods)