London Philharmonic Orchestra

“José Serebrier’s conducting has been so triumphant that we tend to forget he is an equally distinguished composer.” The Times

“As you would expect from a Serebrier recording the sound is stunning, and performances could scarcely be bettered. At the price, this reissue is well worth investigating, as is Naxos’s own recording of Serebrier’s Third Symphony” Fanfare

“There's a lot of energy in these pieces, and Tozer relishes it to the full, sometimes at the expense of the more contemplative passages. But he (and Gislowska) generally have a good handle on Rawsthorne's style.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 ****

“Tozer is a man clearly as much in sympathy with the music as he is master of its not inconsiderable technical difficulties” Gramophone Magazine

“Fans of Eric Coates and Sir Adrian Boult are in for a field-day as Lyrita at long last restores to currency the 87-year-old maestro's much-loved 1976 concert with the New Philharmonia alongside a previous unreleased collection delivered with polish and enthusiasm by the LPO under Barry Wordsworth. Still, there can be no real grumbles with the production values (though a touch more ventilation and bloom would have been nice), and Wordsworth directs proceedings with chipper ebullience.
Especially valuable here is the 1938 ballet TheEnchanted Garden, Coates's biggest orchestral canvas, opulently scored and full of the most warm-hearted invention. Other plums include the roistering '20th Century Rhythm' from the 1941 Four Centuries suite, glittering concert waltz Footlights (1939) and exuberant 1934 march London Bridge (the follow-up to the previous year's indelible 'Knightsbridge').
However, there's no disputing the step-up in class when one turns to Boult's famous selection, which radiates a tingling spontaneity and beaming affection that are very special. For evidence of a master at work, just listen to the way Boult caresses the glorious second subject in The Merrymakers; and what vernal freshness and unruffled elegance he brings to the witty Three Bears fantasy and entrancing Summer Days suite (a great favourite of Elgar's, and whose fragrant centrepiece possesses a truly heady beauty). The rest of the CD is filled out with seven treats from Lyrita's 1978 'Sir Adrian Boult conducts Marches' anthology. Grainger's irresistible Overthe Hills and Far Away in particular fairly bounds along with irrepressible vigour – as, for that matter, does Coates's The Dam Busters – and Delius's Marche-caprice has a captivating twinkle in its eye. The sound remains crisp and nicely detailed. A joyous tonic indeed – they don't make 'em like this any more!” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Assembled from three of Boult's four Lyrita LPs devoted to Ireland, this generous programme launches with the red-blooded symphonic prelude Tritons (a student offering from 1899). Boult and the LPO do not shirk the melodrama and go on to lend equally dedicated advocacy to the magical 1913 prelude TheForgotten Rite and glowering 1921 symphonic rhapsody Mai-Dun.
The stand-out track remains Boult's wonderfully spry and observant account of A LondonOverture (1936), which is easily a match for Barbirolli's almost exactly contemporaneous LSO version for EMI. The 1942 Epic March, too, glints with memorable defiance. The JuliusCaesar diptych is less immediately gripping, but the five-movement suite compiled by Charles Mackerras from Ireland's 1946 score for Ealing Studios' The Overlanders certainly has its moments, not least the touching 'Romance' (which plunders material from A Downland Suite of 1932) and infectiously jaunty outer portions of the central 'Intermezzo'.
Considering some of these sessions took place as long ago as December 1965, the judiciously refurbished sound still packs quite a punch.
Altogether a very welcome reissue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“As ever, Coates's music has great craftsmanship as well as good tunes and, lightweight though it is, it lies firmly within the English tradition. Here Boult finds its affinities with Elgar in delicacy of scoring and hints of nostalgia.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“…in the First Concerto… Ogdon… presents…a more measured, epic view of the work, by turns lushly Ravelian (the slow movement here is exquisitely done) and monumental. Bernard Herrmann puts a real bloom on Scott's impressionistic orchestration…” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 ****

“The composer is splendidly served by his performers here, who create a feeling of spontaneity even when the music itself eddies gently with comparatively little forward movement. The recording, from the mid-1970s, is quite excellent in its CDs format.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition