Taken one piece at a time, the five works on this disc entitled Box of Delights, a collection of British light music, are utterly charming. More than one at a time, however, and the listener is likely to get the aural equivalent of a toothache. With the masterful but slightly sentimental conducting of Barry Wordsworth and the polished though nostalgic playing of the London Philharmonic in three of the five and ebullient conducting of Simon Joly and the slightly garish Royal Philharmonic in the other two, this disc is ...
Read More
Taken one piece at a time, the five works on this disc entitled Box of Delights, a collection of British light music, are utterly charming. More than one at a time, however, and the listener is likely to get the aural equivalent of a toothache. With the masterful but slightly sentimental conducting of Barry Wordsworth and the polished though nostalgic playing of the London Philharmonic in three of the five and ebullient conducting of Simon Joly and the slightly garish Royal Philharmonic in the other two, this disc is superbly performed with not a trace of irony, and instead a generous dollop of affection. One might try Phyllis Tate's jazzy, atmospheric London Fields from 1958, with its delirious xylophone solo in the second movement, or Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's slinky, slippery Valse de la reine, the third of Four Characteristic Waltzes from 1898, and his sweetly seductive Andante and Andante molto from Three-fours Valse Suite from 1899, or Granville Bantock's Tchaikovsky pastiche Russian Scenes from...
Read Less
Portions of content provided by Rovi Corporation. © 2024 Rovi Corporation.