All tracks are taken from existing recordings. The skeleton of the Early Music section hinges on extant Naxos recordings, particularly of the Oxford Camerata under Jeremy Summerly. The remainder of the two-disc set is taken from the Naxos catalogue apart from Judith Weir's piece. This said, one has to admire that all the pieces are of good performances, both from the playing and technical point of view. What I do ask myself is, to whom is the set pitched? It is good to have examples of composers rarely found in one's library, but to the untrained ear I suggest that there is much commonality in style of a number of the composers of Early music. I certainly am interested in mentally analysing chord structure when a musical scene is evolving, but I suggest that this compilation is likely to be mostly of interest to music students at undergraduate level.
 
A truly excellent and generously presented booklet (100pp.) is provided with an outer box to the jewel case. Its content by Anthony Burton is excellent and provides broad developmental coverage. Haydn and Mendelssohn have been omitted on the grounds that they were not born British. Of particular interest to me is mention of those unfairly neglected composers of the 19^th Century like Balfe, Vincent Wallace, MacCunn, Macfarren, Mackenzie, Thomas, William Wallace and Coleridge-Taylor. Sadly, no tracks are provided for any of these composers, presumably because no existing recordings can be found. It is a pity that Naxos has not commissioned a studio session to fill in such milestone gaps.
 
It must have been a difficult task to decide what to put into the programme and what to leave out and I hope it was a committee decision. Even so, I find the weighting towards modern composers unnecessarily heavy and unfair. Our current fashion to actively promote an atonal school on the radio and in the colleges does not impress: and this is not Luddite thinking. (A Guardian article, now two years old, asked which of the modern composers might be remembered in a hundred years' time since over-sophistication and a lack of melody will not make them memorable.) I would suggest that inclusion of composers still alive and whose works have not had to stand the test of time is pretentious and casts an unfair judgement on other contemporary composers not included. Why Davies, Tavener, Weir and Colin Matthews are exalted for inclusion when Curtis, Doyle, Gowers and David Matthews, some commissioned for HM Queen Mother's 1990 Birthday concert have not been mentioned? Disregarding all contemporary composers would have provided room to expand on noticeable omissions.
 
Someone picking up this set will think they are picking up a set that will include examples of those vignettes of rural 'Constable' Britain. Where are Moeran, German, Quilter, Coates, Wood, Lloyd, Duncan and Binge for example? The Holst choice of 'Uranus' from his The Planets is disappointing: I should have expected 'Jupiter' because at least it contains the typically English hymn, 'I vow to thee my country'. Was the fashioning of the programme dictated, principally, by the Naxos catalogue, I wonder?
 
Highlights in the set are the Sterndale Bennett, Parry (no Jerusalem, 1916, nearly our national Anthem), Delius and Bax. Perhaps I expected the Britten's Sea Interludes to have been used as a firm representation of Englishness. The duration of pieces by Elgar and the generally unknown Matthews are long, while a full page photo and front cover image is unfairly devoted to Britten as one of the three best British composers of all time.
 
Raymond Walker
 

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