Walton, Arnold, Duncan, Reilly, Vinter, Farnon, Bennett, Docker, Binge & Coates

COMPOSERS: Arnold,Bennett,Binge & Coates,Docker,Duncan,Farnon,Reilly,Vinter,Walton
LABELS: Carlton BBC Radio Classics
ALBUM TITLE: Collection: Festival of Light Music
WORKS: Works by Walton, Arnold, Duncan, Reilly, Vinter, Farnon, Bennett, Docker, Binge & Coates
PERFORMER: BBC Northern SO/Robert Farnon
CATALOGUE NO: BBCRD 9115

Farnon’s collection begins with a rather loose-limbed and not too successful Orb and Sceptre (Walton’s coronation march); and Arnold’s Four Cornish Dances has, perhaps, a rather too bucolic and lugubrious Vivace opening movement, but a nicely atmospheric and eerie Andantino. What follows really matters here, though – music that only the dullest souls will be able to resist. There is gentle charm in Duncan’s The Girl for Corsica, ballroom romance in Farnon’s own The Westminster Waltz, jazz and intrigue in Richard Rodney Bennett’s Murder on the Orient Express, and stirring drama in Eric Coates’s The Dam Busters March and Farnon’s Colditz March. But the highlight of the programme is Farnon’s Sounds Familiar, a whirlwind ten-minute compendium of music for television and films. It opens and closes with the music for The Forsyte Saga and includes themes from Born Free, (BBC’s) Doctor Finlay’s Casebook and Upstairs, Downstairs, plus a hilarious, very characterful Old Ned, Ron Grainer’s Steptoe & Son theme and the Match of the Day theme played like you’ve never heard it before. The BBC orchestra is excellent in this track; it’s fireworks all the way. Music to chase the blues away. Ian Lace