Lyrita

The release of this four-CD set of works for solo string instruments and orchestra pays tribute, as does the recently issued box-set of ‘British Piano Concertos’, to the imagination and vision of the late Richard Itter and his pioneering Lyrita label. For many, Lyrita was the British music label and was loyally supported by various ‘in house’ conductors, among them Adrian Boult, Nicholas Braithwaite, Norman Del Mar and Vernon Handley. Many of the recordings offered here are from the old Lyrita analogue and early digital catalogue but there are a few recordings made during the label’s short revival between 1993 and 1996 which were not issued until more than a decade after they were made. The set makes for fantastic value for money, each CD containing well over 70 minutes of music, and the performances are generally of tremendous vibrancy and quality.

Lyrita has concluded arrangements to buy Cameo Classics from its founder David Kent-Watson who concentrated on recording the works of neglected composers. Cameo Classics is now owned by The Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust which was founded by the late Richard Itter to continue his life’s work recording and promoting British Classical Music through the Lyrita label. The Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust will operate Cameo Classics alongside the Lyrita label. Cameo Classics had released several important premieres of works by British composers several of these recordings will be recompiled for immediate issue on the Lyrita label. The remaining Cameo titles will be represented alongside a new release programme drawn from the non-British material contained in the Itter Broadcast Collection. This release features premiere recordings of works by Arthur Somervell, Cyrill Scott, Maurice Blower, Frederick Kelly, and many other prolific yet too often neglected British composers.

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.

It is to be hoped this release will reawaken interest in the music of William Sterndale Bennett, for it contains much to delight the senses. Juxtaposing the D minor and C minor concertos is a wise move on Lyrita’s part, for they are in many ways complementary works. The most immediately noticeable feature of the First Piano Concerto is that it ends with a Scherzo – the composer was persuaded to omit the finale from his intended four-movement plan!. Although still a student at the time of composition, it is clearly written by a fairly mature composer, as can be heard in the depths plumbed by the Andante sostenuto or by the vividly evoked storm-clouds of the first movement.

This release is of a different and more ambitious kind than other releases of the mid-2010s on the Lyrita revival label. Like the others, it is taken from BBC broadcasts, but in this case, the recording was made in a studio, not live, and the sound quality is much superior. The most unusual feature is the music by the almost-forgotten Granville Bantock, who was as responsible as anyone else for the ongoing popularity of Sibelius in Britain, and who, believe it or not, liked to dress up as the medieval Persian poet Omar Khayyam.

This triptych of British violin sonatas bears a wartime theme. Ireland’s A minor famously elevated his name to prestige on its 1917 premiere, whereas the sonatas by Geoffrey Bush - this is its premiere recording - and Franz Reizenstein date from 1945.