A diverse program with minimal cowpat and plenty of pep.

The bassoon on display throughout the 20th century.

Whether oboe with strings or oboe alone, Celia Craig's Artaria releases are well worth a listen.

Piers Lane, whose new album is Limelight's Recording of the Month, explains why once recognised masterpieces can grow to be underestimated and neglected.

Piers Lane dazzles, charms and calms in these English concertos.

Way back last century (in 1986 to be precise) the choir of King’s College, Cambridge under Stephen Cleobury produced a recording of choral pieces by Bax and Finzi. At a time when fascination with ‘early music’ was at its height, this rather unfashionable choice of repertory was a revelation; its expansive text-setting and lush harmonies were a reminder of a then rather neglected corner of choral music, full of guilty but well-wrought pleasures. Some 30 years on, choirs are thankfully less narrow in their choices. James O’Donnell and his Westminster Abbey forces have delivered a more than worthy successor to that disc. O’Donnell lavishes much care on Finzi’s masterly anthem, Lo the Full, Final Sacrifice; its long, contrasting paragraphs full of beautiful singing, whether the exultant “Lo, the bread of life” or the meditative “soft, self-wounding Pelican” or the beguiling Amen. Careful attention to text mirrors Finzi’s own care in this regard. God is Gone Up is dispatched with appropriate élan and the Magnificat radiates unalloyed joy. Three smaller Finzi anthems confirm his appeal. Bax is represented by contrasting carols, I Sing of a Maiden and This Worldes Joie – the first carefree and the second careworn. Given the considerable…

Norwegian conductor Eivind Aadland plays to the ASO’s strengths.

The British maestro explains his passion for MGM and why he believes his home team needs support. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A love of all things Irish may have influenced Arnold Bax but there is a great deal beyond the Emerald Isle to discover in his music

Sir Arnold Bax was one of Britain’s most individual composers. Hearing a few bars of one of his mature, Celtic infused scores is often enough for you to say, “ah, Bax”. But in 1907, as a well-heeled emigré wannabe composer “battening on the fleshpots of Dresden”, as we are told in Lewis Foreman’s excellent sleeve notes, his influences and musical flavour were distinctly Russian – indeed, his landlady was convinced he was one! In Germany he also got to hear two movements of Mahler’s Sixth and something of the ambition of that work infuses this, his first attempt at a symphony. It was Bax’s practice to orchestrate only when he had a performance in view, and in the absence of such, the piano score languished – until now, thanks to the conductor Martin Yates. It’s a big, sprawling work, in places in need of a trim, but it’s brimming with memorable material such as the leaping opening theme of the first movement or the Ravelian waltz that forms the basis of the scherzo. The whole work is most convincingly realised for the orchestra. Bax was a master colourist and that this comes over here is a credit to Yates. It……