"Delightful fare from a hugely respected teacher and master craftsman."
"These uniformly understanding performances have been beautifully engineered, and this is indeed a desirable anthology, expertly annotated by Lewis Foreman and jointly sponsored by the RVW Trust and the RCM."
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, March 2007

CDLX 7177

"Matthew Taylor is one of Britain's most interesting younger composers and conductors. His first symphony sprang from close studies of Haydn's Sturm and Drang series, and he adopts an identical scoring of two oboes, two horns and strings for this colourful single-movement work. Symphony no.3 is altogether more monumental, dominated by ideas of energy and acceleration. It is played here with accompllished ease by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Taylor, with jaunty horn concerto offered as a bittersweet lolipop."
Stephen Pritchard, The Guardian newspaper, 31 December 2006

CDLX 7178

Dutton’s championship of composer-pianist John McCabe takes a major step forward with this gripping programme. McCabe’s previously unrecorded quasi-symphonic four movement First Piano Concerto dates from 1967. Played by the composer, it has a winning combination of scherzando toccata and long-held elegiac tune. The first suite from David Bintley’s ballet Arthur Pendragon, which was a huge success for the Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2000 and 2001, is more than just a telling memento of that occasion, the four movements of the suite making a gripping concert work in their own right. The surprise of the programme for many lovers of McCabe’s music will be the single movement Pilgrim for double string orchestra. Inspired by Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, this substantial score has many resonances of English music across the centuries, notably encompassing variations on a theme from Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony.

"The influences of Poulenc and Stravinsky are fully absorbed in this crisp 20-minute concerto (1967) with McCabe the impressive soloist. A more mature McCabe is heard in the Arthur Pendragon suite from a full-length ballet, truely theatrical music, scored with consistent skill. This enterprising disc is completed by Pilgrim (1998 version for double string orchestra). Inevitably there are echoes of Vaughan Williams, but McCabe's work stands on its own as a very individual and moving act of homage. The BBC SSO strings play with white-hot eloquence under Christopher Austin and the recording is full and resonant."
Michael Kennedy, Sunday Telegraph, 8 April 2007

"I remember poring over this piano concerto in Manchester's Henry Watson Music Library in my teens, eager to see how "modern music" was written, but not until now have I heard the piece. Its opening at once brought back the notation - piano trills stretching over pages. The soloist's entry, remarkably, is a minute-long trill, recalled in the third movement. The overall four-part structure is complex and dramatic, the idiom lean and laconic, and in this account, the work has an often explosive energy."
"Austin contrives a splendid climax in the string-orchestral Pligrim, and gives a fiery committed reading of music from the David Bintley ballet Arthur Pendragon."
Paul Driver, Sunday Times, 6 May 2007

"I have long been amazed why this splendid work, written for the 1967 Southport Centenary Festival, has not been recorded before ... so Dutton's commtted advocacy is unequivocally to be welcomed."
"Powerful stuff, the BBC Scottish SO's performance under Christopher Austin is inspired. With excellent sound, this issue is very strongly recommended."
Guy Rickards, Gramophone, June 2007

“A brilliant performance by McCabe of his ‘ Southport ’ Concerto, the first of his four concertos for the instrument to date. The piece was written in 1966-7 and is in the manner of an English Bartok – full of rhythmic élan. This is marvellous music, vividly realised on this superbly engineered CD from Dutton.”
Winner of ‘Best New Piano Recording’, International Piano Awards 2007

CDLX 7179

The oboist Melinda Maxwell’s first programme for Dutton Epoch in 2003 (CDLX 7139 Composer and Oboist) was a showcase for a remarkable artist. Her second survey of new music for oboe and cor anglais from the Royal Northern College of Music presents not only works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, but her own atmospheric Song of Sidney. Other composers include Martin Butler, Adam Gorb, Anthony Gilbert, Larry Goves, Simon Holt and Edward Gregson’s remarkable instrumental evocation of Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan, which Gregson calls Shadow of Paradise.

"Melinda Maxwell is an outstanding musician. The range of colour and expression she brings to this music is phenomenal."
"Altogether an interesting collection, as well recorded as it is played."
Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine, July 2007

CDLX 7180

The combination of flute, oboe and piano is an evocative and atmospheric one, here explored by seven varied composers. Flautist Nancy Ruffer, oboist John Anderson and pianist Helen Crayford bring a telling fluidity and spontaneity to a succession of delightful scores. Goossens’s sunlit Pastorale et Arlequinade Op. 1924 is followed by Madeleine Dring’s three movement Trio and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sounds and Sweet Aires, also in three movements. Edward McGuire’s Three Dialogues and Thea Musgrave’s Impromptu are both two-way instrumental conversations for flute and oboe, the Musgrave being more light-hearted. Rhian Samuel’s Shadow Dance features fragments of a dance tune, which undergo a central catharsis before the tune emerges in a gentle 6/8. The programme ends with Malcolm Arnold’s Suite Bourgeoise, five delightful movements written at the beginning of WWII whilst Arnold was still in his teens, but little known because he had mislaid the scores for over fifty years.

CDLX 7181

If you warmed to Dutton Epoch’s recording of Edmund Rubbra’s string quartets (CDLX 7114 and 7123), you will love this. The Tippett String Quartet, one of the most exciting young groups recently to appear, play Dodgson’s rewarding music with commitment and understanding. Dodgson’s is music for today, in a language with which all can engage, and while, for example, in the first quartet the composer acknowledged the influence of Janacek, to the listener Dodgson’s personal voice is immediate and compelling.

"Dodgeson has dedictated his long composing career to the goals of economy and purity. He has written plenty of vocal and dramatic music, but it is his abstract thinking that stands out. It is enshrined in a body of quartets now totalling nine, being released by Dutton in three volumes."
"This first contains nos 1, 5, 6 & 7, dispatched with vigour and incisiveness by these young players."
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

CDLX 7182

The brilliant Canadian pianist Leslie De’Ath’s complete survey of Cyril Scott’s piano music continues on CDLX 7183, which presents Scott’s many piano encores, compiled on two CDs for the price of one. Here De’Ath concentrates in the main on the music written between 1907 and 1918, together with some earlier pieces Scott wrote whilst he was a student, and popular pieces from the 1920s. The suites Summerland, Op. 54 (1907), Suite in the Old Style, Op. 71 No. 1 (1910), Trois Danses Tristes Op. 74 (1910), Impressions from the Jungle Book (1912), A Little Russian Suite (1916) and Old China (Vieux chine): Suite (1918) are crowned by compositions from the 1920s such as Spanish Dance.

2 CD SET - CDLX 7183

The Dutton Arnell series continues with the eagerly awaited second volume of his symphonies and, like the epic Third Symphony (issued on CDLX 7161), here we have another equally vivid symphonic response to the Second World War, written in New York between 1942 and 1944. Who can fail to respond to Arnell’s wide-spanning lines, his inexorable climaxes, his remarkable slow movement? Soon after the Second Symphony, the Piano Concerto was heard in New York, later at the proms in London, and now, championed here by David Owen Norris, it is revealed as one of the most approachable British concertos of its time.

"The torrent of enterprising offerings from Dutton Epoch shows no sign of abating. Martin Yates and the RSNO follow up their exciting premiere recording of Richard Arnell's Third Symphony with no less compelling and spirited rendering of its predecessor from 1942. Not heard until 1988, this is a most invigorating, tautly argued achievement, its clean-heeled outer movements framing a fretful Allegretto of considerable emotional intensity. The crowd-pleasing 1946 Piano Concerto is likewise brimful of ear-tickling colour, effective contrast and arresting drama - all relished to the max by the indefatigable David Owen Norris."
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, June 2007

"Dutton has spearheaded the long overdue revival of interest in the music of Richard Arnell."
"Arnell's Second Symphony is more straightforward composition than his Third Symphony and here makes an excellent companion work to the Concerto. More straightforward structurally it may be, and therefore more accessible than the massive Third, but no less passionate in expression. It really is a fine work, and is quite magnificently performed on this disc."
"... Yates draws superb playing from the RSNO ... and all in all this is a very welcome release. Music of this quality manifestly does not deserve the long-time neglect which has befallen it."
Robert Matthew-Walker, International Record Review, May 2007

CDLX 7184

A revelation for all lovers of the English symphony: Vernon Handley conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra works his magic on two tremendous but until now unknown scores, in an unexpected coupling. Edgar Bainton’s glorious Third Symphony, his last work, from 1956, was written when he was living in Australia, and Rutland Boughton’s First Symphony, from 1905, a swaggering Edwardian celebration of Oliver Cromwell, is crowned by baritone Roderick Williams’s fervent projection of Cromwell’s prayer at the end. We perhaps do not link the names of Edgar Bainton and Rutland Boughton, yet they were friends and contemporaries when Boughton was trying to launch his opera scheme at Glastonbury at the beginning of WWI, and their music, early and late, makes a uniquely rewarding programme.

"... another substaintial coupling from Dutton, on which Vernon Handley and the BBC Concert Orchestra resuscitate two symphonies by Edgar Bainton and Rutland Boughton. The latter's First (a red-blooded, somewhat Lisztian character portrait of Oliver Cromwell) dates from 1905 and its finale incorporates a sincerely felt setting for baritone (here the eloquent Roderick Williams) of Cromwell's last prayer. Bainton's Third Symphony (1956) ... strikes me as a find: a 42-minute journey of frequently piercing beauty and slumbering power, waymarked by a haunting pentatonic motif. With first rate orchestral playing and Handley in his element, Anglophiles and adventurous collectors alike needn't tarry."
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, June 2007

CDLX 7185

The remarkably eloquent playing of soloist Sarah-Jane Bradley illuminates this persuasive programme of music for viola and small orchestra. This is heard in works ranging from the haunted half-lights of Holst’s Lyric Movement and Alwyn’s Pastoral Fantasia on the outbreak of war in 1939, to Maconchy’s Romance, McCabe’s Concerto Funebre and David Matthews’s response to Schubert’s Winterreise, which he called Winter Remembered after a poem by the American John Crowe Ransom. The McCabe is among his earliest works, and has been specially revised for its inclusion here. This is a lovely collection, and George Vass and Orchestra Nova respond to the music with passion, finding a luminous intensity that allows Sarah-Jane Bradley’s plangent viola full reign.

"Sarah-Jane Bradley is the rare kind of viola-player who can make you blush with shame for ever having told a viola joke. In her hands the instrument is passionate, eloquant and wide-ranging in its colours and moods - a long way from the charmless introvert of orchestral lore."
"... the variety, cohesion and purpose Bradley brings, even to a loosley rhapsodic piece like Alwyn's Pastoral Fantasia, make sure the ear is kept involved."
"George Vass and his Orchestra Nova make a highly effective partners for Bradley, and the clear, warm-toned recording does all concerned full justice."
Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine, June 2007

CDLX 7186

"The indefatigable champion of British music, Vernon Handley, here presents a strong case for one of the 20th century's semi-forgotten figures, enhanced by the pianistic panache of Michael Dussek."
"Its [the music on this disc's] combination of succulence, brilliance and strong melodic threads, coupled with the sensitivity and spirit of these performances, ought to win new admirers for two imaginative concertos and a Symphonic Fantasia of Straussian lyricism and verve."
Geoffrey Norris, The Daily Telegraph, 7 August 2007

"This is high-Victorian musical rhetoric, full of good breeding and good taste…the Lisztian piano writing sparkles, the orchestration is transparent…The BBC Concert Orchestra plays as if it believes in this stuff; Michael Dussek plays with energy but also a light touch – a good idea, for heaviness in this self-important music would be fatal."
Sullivan, American Record Review

CDLX 7187

"All four soloists are first-class and the composer elicits effective and idiomatic readings from everybody concerned, while Dutton's signature acoustic is on full display. This is a release designated purely forauditory enjoyment"
Paul A. Snook, Fanfare May/June 2007

CDLK 7188

"Bowled over by David Matthews’s Sixth Symphony at the Proms? Then bask in more adventurous lyricism in this collection from Orchestra Nova and George Vass. Gillian Keith’s radiant soprano in the beautiful The Sleeping Lord is the highlight; but the reflective Movement of Autumn, with Rachel Nicholls, isn’t far behind. Plus lighter pieces, a nifty string tango, and the young mezzo Lucie Spickova giving us her best ancient Greek."
Geoff Brown, The Times, 17 August 2007

"Conductor George Vass, a close colleague of the composer, directs performances characterized by an immaculate and idiomatic dedication on the part of all participants. As usual, Dutton's acoustic is unimpeachable. This modest but subtle and distinctive music will prove a revelation to all lovers of the Anglican muse."
Paul A. Snook, Fanfare May/June 2007

CDLK 7189

CDLX 7190

CDLX 7191

CDLX 7192

CDLX 7193

"The performances are enthusiastic and the music itself is first-rate. Highly recommended."
Barry Brenesal, Fanfare, May/June 2007

CDLX 7194

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, under the inspired conductorship of Martin Yates, make their fourth appearance on the Dutton Epoch label. The first work they perform on this release is Thomas Dunhill’s Symphony in A Minor, started in 1914 and completed in 1916. Dunhill’s music tended to be focused on the lighter orchestral repertoire and was widely played in the 1930s, and in their day his light operas were popular. His Symphony in A minor is his most substantial non-operatic work. The Yates/RSNO partnership do full justice to a magnificent work described in 1935 by composer Roger Quilter as being “so finely made & conceived & so sincere, also so cleanly scored; and without padding; a fine achievement.” Dutton Epoch’s commitment to the music of Richard Arnell continues with the RSNO’s exquisite interpretation of his 1952 composition Lord Byron: a symphonic portrait, Op.67. The poet Byron (George Gordon, sixth Baron Byron) died in 1824 at the early age of 35. Arnell’s tribute to the poet was commissioned by Beecham for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and was described by the composer as “an attempt to create, in music, the illusion of a real character…a portrait of the poet himself.” Indeed, the RSNO under Martin Yates bring this enthralling musical portrait vividly to life.

"Regular readers will doubtless be aware of previous Dutton releases of music of Richard Arnell, which I have had the pleasure of welcoming to the catalogue ... principally those of his orchestral music, which have been well performed by the Royal Scottish National under Martin Yates."
"Now comes the latest issue of work ... in terms of performance and recording it is up to those earlier CDs."
Robert Matthew-Walker, International Record Review, January 2008

CDLX 7195

This CD features three different works by three very different 20th century British composers, while two orchestras who have established strong links to the Dutton Epoch label – the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra – are on hand to interpret the scores with all their customary panache and virtuosity. The Scottish composer Erik Chisholm was one of those who, because he went to live abroad at a crucial phase in his career, have tended to be forgotten in the country of their birth. His Second Symphony (subtitled Ossian) dates from 1939 but was never performed as such. Instead it was quarried by the composer for his wartime ballet ‘The Earth-Shapers’ (‘a symphonic ballet in a prologue and one act’). It would be easy to relate this music to the times in which it was composed, as a metaphor for the struggle with Nazism. But Chisholm has left us no such allusion. In contrast, Trevor Hold’s song cycle, The Unreturning Spring, though written between 1961 and 1963 very much reflects issues of the war in setting the airman James Farrar’s poems. Eric Fogg, the son of the organist to the Hallé Orchestra, was a child prodigy composer whose youthful output was considerable. Known for his work as an accompanist for the BBC in Manchester during the ’20s/’30s and later as BBC Empire Director of Music in London, much of Fogg’s orchestral output is now lost. His evocative musical picture of the sea at dusk, Sea-Sheen, was published when Fogg was only seventeen. Eric Fogg’s orchestral evocation Merok is dated June 1929, and was published in 1934. Merok is a tiny village in Norway, situated at the head of the Geiranger Fjord, and Fogg’s musical picture takes the form of variations on a Norwegian folk song.

CDLX 7196