Whatever the source or occasion, Robert Docker turned out classy, polished scores that transform diverse materials into a ready-made and ageless symphonic idiom. This latest...

Whatever the source or occasion, Robert Docker turned out classy, polished scores that transform diverse materials into a ready-made and ageless symphonic idiom.

This latest installment in Marco Polo's "British Light Music" series offers a virtual modern-day apotheosis of the venerable "palm court" salon music of a century or more ago.

Robert Docker (1918-92) was in many ways an atypical figure in the world of contemporary light music. Classically trained and oriented, he first made a name for himself as a recital accompanist for operatic singers. Later on he produced a small but select body of work that builds upon the refined and civilized tradition of Elgar, German, and Coleridge-Taylor. There's no hint of pop commercialization here or even any pompous pseudoclassical bathos. His best-known piece is Legend, a "Warsaw Concerto" clone, and it is a far more dignified and intimate in tone than its models, while some of the other works here—the Three Contrasts for Oboe and Strings and the Scènes de ballet, for example—project a concert-hall kind of ambience and substance. Tabahnage is a tongue-in-cheek romp in an Anglican-Offenbach manner, while The Spirit of Cambria (a fantasia on four Welsh folk tunes), Fairy Dance Reel, and Blue Ribbons (based on Oh dear, what can the matter be?) display Docker's outstanding arranging and orchestrating skills to great advantage.

Whatever the source or occasion, he turned out classy, polished scores that transform diverse materials into a ready-made and ageless symphonic idiom. Though he tends to fall back on time-tested forms and styles that permit little room for the adventurous or the idiosyncratic, the most original work here is Pastiche Variations, wherein the main theme—the French folk tune Frère Jacques—is only gradually disclosed through an artful aping of many famous composers from the past. This well-turned-out quarter-hour piece is well worthy of sharing a program with other chestnuts of the established repertoire.

Excellent notes by conductor Barry Knight, who leads the RTE Concert Orchestra of Ireland in immaculate and idiomatic readings.

Another essential contribution to the recorded library of light concert music.

-- Paul A. Snook, FANFARE [9/2000]