This is not one for the unpatriotic or those allergic to the
bagpipe - two tracks of the latter, totalling over 12 minutes
- but it could be just the thing for those who would like to
celebrate The Last Night of the Proms all year round.
I could be critical and point out that Holst never wrote a
piece entitled ‘I vow to thee my country’ and that
he disliked the words which others set to his music - I know
several people who go much further than that and abhor the
jingoism - or that Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March
No.1 and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ are really two
different things. Nor did Kenneth Alford write music for The
Bridge on the River Kwai - his ‘Colonel Bogey’ was
merely arranged for the film - but I suspect that such nit-picking
would cut little ice with those likely to buy these CDs.
Let me say, then, that if the programme appeals, the performances
are all pretty good, as are the recordings, despite their wide
age-range. If I were given the run of the Universal Classics
back-catalogue, I doubt that I could come up with a much better
selection of performances, though I might have gone for something
a little more distinctive than some of the Barry Wordsworth
items which form the backbone of the collection.
I’d be happy to hear these tracks on BBC Radio 2’s Friday
Night is Music Night, but I’m glad that Decca have
gone, for example, for the ASMF/Marriner version of the Greensleeves
Fantasia in preference to Wordsworth’s. The version
of Walton’s Orb and Sceptre from the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra and David Hill, too, has much more swagger
than Wordsworth’s account of Crown Imperial two
tracks earlier on CD2.
As for ‘Danny Boy’, the one item from Bryn Terfel
Sings Favourites included here, I’d be a little,
but only a little less harsh than Tony Haywood was when reviewing
the parent CD: “Too many of the small items, particularly
the traditional and folksongs, are given the Hollywood treatment
by producer Chris Hazell ... One for Granny’s birthday
present, I think.” (DG 474 438 2 - see review).
It’s over-sweet, another one for the Friday Night slot
- but I guess that’s the audience at which these CDs
are aimed.
The engineers have done an excellent job of matching the levels
and ambiance of one track to another - all too often collections
of this kind have the listener constantly reaching for the
volume control. One of the earliest items, the 1966 Fennell
recording of Coates’ Halcyon Days, sounds just
as good as some of the more recent DDD tracks - but, then,
it was a Mercury recording originally. The abrupt cut-off of
the ambiance at the end of the Fantasia on Sea Songs,
however, makes an unpleasant lead-in to the Greensleeves
Fantasia, which follows all too hard upon its heels.
Collections of this kind abound; another branch of the Universal
Empire, for example, has a rival collection entitled The
Best Ever British Music Collection. Who dreams up these
overblown titles? The sub-title of the present collection is
not even accurate: this is not a general survey of classical
music, merely of a particular branch of it. Who decides on
the ‘best’?
I’d like to think that those who buy this set would be
likely to wish to explore some of the music further, but I
understand that the evidence is all to the contrary - those
who buy discs of gobbets like this rarely move on to buy a
complete CD devoted to a single composer. Why go for this recording
of just two of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches,
for example, when excellent complete recordings of the whole
set are available, often at super-budget price. For around £5,
for example, Naxos can offer very acceptable performances of
the complete Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Polonia and
the Coronation March (8.557273) and EMI British Composers
have complete recordings by Boult (7640152, with the complete Enigma
Variations, not just ‘Nimrod’, divorced from
context on this new Decca set) and, perhaps best of all, Barbirolli
(5663232, with the Froissart and Cockaigne Overtures).
You may think that you won’t like Elgar’s other
music on offer here; how will you know unless you try? Remember
that Walt Disney’s Dopey ended up not speaking because
he never tried.
If you like the three items by Eric Coates, why not investigate
the rest of his very tuneful music on an inexpensive double
Classics for Pleasure album (3523562) or try some more of Percy
Grainger’s music on a budget-price Chandos sampler for
their complete series of his music (CHAN2029 - my Bargain of
the Month in August 2008 and 77 minutes of delight - see review)?
If much of this music is duplicated on other collections, there
are not too many choices when it comes to Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia
on Sea Songs, a work for which I must admit to having a
soft spot. There are rival versions on a 2-CD Warner set offering
the Last Night of the Proms 2004 at a lower price than the
new collection (2564 19562, around £8) and the Hornpipe
only on an even less expensive collection on Classics for Pleasure
entitled Rule Britannia and duplicating many of the
pieces on the new release for around £5.50 (3524072).
I don’t understand why Decca chose the Wordsworth recording
of the Wood Fantasia, good as it is, when they have
an even better performance in their catalogue, from the same
disc as the Stanford item, conducted by Sir Roger Norrington.
(And why, when the booklet is generally scrupulous about including
titles, including Sir Thomas Allen, is Sir Roger deprived of
his?)
The other problem, as so often with collections of this kind,
concerns the lack of information provided, information which
the novice collector badly needs. How is he or she to know,
for example, that the Jeremiah Clarke piece is still better
known, incorrectly, as Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary?
(Remember the Peter Sellers LP about the teenage idol’s
swinging version of the Trumpet Volunteer.) How is he
or she to know that the so-called ‘I vow to thee’ is
actually an arrangement of a movement from The Planets suite,
the whole of which offers some rather wonderful music, again
available in very good performances at budget price? (Warner
Apex 8573 89087-2, BBCSO/Sir Andrew Davis, with Egdon Heath to
name just one.)
The one item here from Frederick Fennell, Eric Coates’ Halcyon
Days, makes me want to hear the complete CD from which
the track is taken; it includes the other two items from The
Three Elizabeths and some Percy Grainger, but it seems
not to be available currently in the UK, except as a multi-CD
download, available from passionato.com (475 6851).
By all means buy these new CDs, then, if they appeal, but I
would urge potential buyers to be a little more adventurous
and to trade up from this kind of collection to something more
substantial; use the pages of MusicWeb to guide you. Soon you’ll
also find yourself moving on from collections of arias by your
favourite singer to single-CD excerpts from complete operas
and then to the complete operas themselves.
Brian Wilson
Details
CD1
Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934) Land of Hope and
Glory - arr. from ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ March
No.11 [5:52]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759) Zadok the
Priest (Coronation Anthem No.1, HWV 258)1 [5:05]
Sir Hubert PARRY (1848-1918) Jerusalem1 [2:34]
Thomas ARNE (1710-1778) Rule Britannia1,
2 [4:48]
Sir Edward ELGAR ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ Op.39:
March, No.4 in G1 [4:52]
Gustav HOLST (1874-1934) I Vow to Thee, my Country1,
2 [4:40]
Sir Edward ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme, Op.36 ‘Enigma’ -
9. Nimrod (Adagio)1 [4:05]
Eric COATES (1186-1957) The Dam Busters3 [3:52]
Kenneth J ALFORD (1881-1945) arr. Sir Malcolm
ARNOLD Colonel Bogey - From the film ‘Bridge on the
River Kwai’(1914) (1957)4 [4:35]
Sir William WALTON (1902-1983) Henry V - The
Battle of Agincourt4 [3:34]
Percy GRAINGER (1882-1961) Shepherd’s Hey5 [2:15]
George Frideric HANDEL Joshua / Part 3 - O had I Jubal’s
lyre6 [2:33]
Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD (1852-1924) Songs
of the Sea - No. 1 Drake’s Drum7 [2:49]
Sir Hubert PARRY I Was Glad8 [5:37]
CD2
Sir Henry WOOD (1869-1944) Fantasia on British
Sea Songs9 [12:43]
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) Fantasia on
Greensleeves10 [4:24]
Sir William WALTON Crown Imperial: A Coronation March11 [5:54]
Jeremiah CLARKE (c.1674-1707) Trumpet Voluntary11,
12 [2:31]
Sir William WALTON Orb and Sceptre13 [7:36]
Eric COATES The Three Elizabeths - Halcyon Days14 [7:23]
Scottish Medley15 [7:27]
arr.: Chris HAZELL ‘Danny Boy’ (Traditional) Irish tune from
County Derry16 [4:32]
Land of My Fathers17 [1:55]
Sir Edward ELGAR Chanson de Matin, Op.15, No.211 [2:59]
Amazing Grace 200715 [4:56]
Eric COATES London Suite - 3. Knightsbridge (March)11 [4:07]
God Save The Queen1 [0:55]
The Royal Choral Society; BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth1;
Della Jones (mezzo)2; Philip Jones Ensemble/Elgar Howarth3;
The London Festival Orchestra/Stanley Black4; English Chamber Orchestra/Benjamin
Britten5; Dame Janet Baker (mezzo); English Chamber Orchestra/Raymond
Leppard6; Sir Thomas Allen (Baritone); London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Roger Norrington7; The Sixteen/Harry Christophers8; Martin
Loveday (Violin); Nigel Blomiley (cello); Ileana Ruhemann (flute); Linden Harris
(oboe); Michael Pearce (clarinet); Simon Gunton (euphonium); BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry
Wordsworth9; The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Sir Neville Marriner10;
BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth11; Robert Ferriman (trumpet)12;
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/David Hill13; London ‘Pops’ Orchestra/Frederick
Fennell14; Royal Scots Dragoon Guards15; Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone);
London Symphony Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth16; Fron Male Voice Choir17
DECCA 476 3615 [57:51+67:57] 
