Bamert

Parry’s two finest and most popular anthems, Blest Pair of Sirens and I was glad, make an attractive coupling to his famous choral works. The 45-minute work The Soul’s Ransom, with its sequence of solos and choruses, forms a broadly symphonic four-movement structure and The Lotos eaters; a setting for soprano, chorus and orchestra is performed by Della Jones, a characterful soloist. This is a full and atmospheric recording to match the incandescent performances.

The Korngold revival is gathering fabulous momentum as the composer’s centenary (29 May 1997) approaches. Now Matthias Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic give us the first ever recording of the charming military march written by Korngold for his regiment in the First World War, the best-yet recording of the bizarre Left Hand Piano Concerto and full-blooded accounts of the Cello Concerto and Symphonic Serenade, all delivered with the sensitivity and sensuality that their earlier recording of the Sinfonietta also boasted.

Boccherini never scaled the heights of his contemporaries Haydn and Mozart, but he was a fluent composer, tuneful, and imaginative in his orchestral scoring. Doubled lower strings in Symphony No. 3 create a deep-pile texture; mandolin/guitar-like pizzicato in the second movement may reflect his employment in Madrid by the Spanish Infante; colourful flutes replace oboes in the minuet (though piercing piccolo solo on this recording is perhaps a quirk too far).

Franz Krommer (1759-1831) was a prolific and very good composer, whose music is now being resuscitated with great and deserved success. It was difficult to be a composer in Vienna at the same time as Beethoven and Schubert, and most of their contemporaries have not survived the pressure. But Krommer managed to retain his personality and originality, becoming the last official director of chamber music and court composer to the Habsburg court under the conservative Emperor Francis I. The first of the two symphonies was published in 1803. Among its many interesting features is a haunting litde trio in the form of a waltz. The second work is much later, with four horns and three trombones, and is in C minor, but ending in the major. In both works, Krommer's knowledge of, and predilection for, the wind instruments is notable. The two works were well worth recording, especially with such felicitous performances and bright, pleasing recorded sound.

Dohnányi’s Ruralia hungarica celebrates his homeland’s folk music with authentic melodies, collected by Bartók and Kodály, all presented in glowing, vibrant orchestral dress. The opening movement introduces a pastoral atmosphere with important material for oboe and strings and then comes a song for clarinet about a weeping willow. The music is warm and sunny, sentimental but with a dramatically tense climax. The second movement is a racy, thrusting rondo with a touch of the oriental. The third movement is gentler, calmer and wistful and innocent. The fourth movement is full of emotion, quite raw at times when it touches on the depravity of a girl who is banished from her home. Finally the Fifth movement rushes headlong to a tempestuous conclusion.

Symphony No. 1 in D minor for Large Orchestra and American Rhapsody. Dohnányi’s First Symphony was written just three years or so after the First Piano Concerto and here we are beginning to be aware of a more individual style developing. He scores the orchestra adroitly. Unlike the First Piano Concerto it is less derivative; although, like that work, it is portentous and intense and is a marathon indulgence, sprawling over almost an hour. It begins in the manner of Bruckner and its opening movement spreads over a glut of moods from no-nonsense harshness and martial heroics through eerie and mysterious stuff to intimate sentimentality visiting folk material on the way and indulging in fist-shaking bombast towards its end.

Imitating Haydn symphonies became a European speciality in the last three decades of the 18th century. Literally hundreds were written, by composers from Carlos Baguer in Catalonia to Joseph Martin Kraus in Sweden. Dozens were published under Haydn’s name. It was no wonder that even a cultivated listener in Paris (the centre of the music publishing world at that time) would have found it difficult in 1790 to define Haydn’s symphonic style. Antonio Rosetti (born Franz Anton Rösler in German-speaking Bohemia – it was better business to sport an Italian name) lived from c1750 to 1792 and began to write popular and successful neo-Haydn symphonies in about 1773, when he entered the service of the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein in Germany. He remained there until 1789, when he became Kapellmeister to the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

This is surely what the name Stokowski linked to Baroque music conjures up - a vast orchestra, deployed with great skill in his fabulously lush orchestrations. Beautifully played and recorded.

This is the best version I have come across. John Field is a forgotten composer who deserves to be listened to. He was the first to exploit the full tonal qualities of the pianoforte and introduced European "classical" music to Russia. He taught Glinka and is regarded by some as the father of Russian music.