Best of British (CD review)

The Nation's Favourite Classical Music. Various artists. EMI 50999 6 31600 2 4 (3-disc set).

Bits and pieces. Bits and pieces.

EMI Records Ltd. is one of the biggest and oldest record companies in the world, obviously with an extensive back catalogue of prestigious artists and orchestras to draw upon. In this mid-priced, three-disc CD set, the company offer the listener forty-four selections of popular British classical music. Of course, none of it lasts very long. Each piece is either a short work or a single movement of a longer work. That's about what we expect from a best-of collection. It's a little frustrating to a guy like me who wants to hear more of the same thing rather than quickly moving on to something else, but a judicious use of the programming buttons on one's remote can at least produce a welcome hour or so of favorites.

I'm not going to bore you by citing every track in the set, but let me at least mention a few of the things that stood out for me, beginning on disc one, track one, with Vaughan Williams's "The Lark Ascending," featuring David Nolan, violin, and Vernon Handley leading the London Philharmonic. The 1985 recording may not displace Hugh Bean, Sir Adrian Boult, and the New Philharmonia in the work, but it's close. My only question: Isn't it an odd choice to begin the collection? Wouldn't a rouser like the second selection below have been a more appropriate opener?

Anyway, next we have "Jupiter" from Holst's The Planets, Simon Rattle's 1981 recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra. I think it's better than Rattle's later recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, although I would have preferred hearing Previn or Boult in this music.

After that we have the composer most represented in the set, George Frideric Handel, born German but a naturalized British citizen whom the British call their own. We get bits from his Messiah, like the "Hallelujah Chorus" from 1967 with Sir Charles Mackerras, the Ambrosian Singers, and the English Chamber Orchestra, extremely well recorded. Later, the set offers more of Handel with segments of the Water Music, the Royal Fireworks Music, and others from various artists.

In maybe the best reading ever of Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, we find Sir Adrian Boult and the London Symphony at the top of their form in 1971 with the "Nimrod" movement. Then we hear Vernon Handley and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in two top-notch interpretations of Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Fantasia on Greensleeves, both from 1991.

Even though I don't quite like Handley's 1981 version of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 as much as those of Boult or Barbirolli, it's almost a toss-up, so who's to quibble.

Disc two of the set contains slightly less-familiar fare, but not by much. I greatly enjoyed George Butterworth's "The Banks of Green Willow," in a bucolic treatment by Neville Dilkes and the English Sinfonia, recorded in 1971. After that is a must, Elgar's orchestration of Hubert Parry's "Jerusalem," with the Goldsmiths' Choral Union and Owain Arwel Hughes leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded in 2003. The sound is a bit forward and bright, but it doesn't interfere too much with a fine performance.

Then Hughes returns with the Halle Orchestra doing Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" in a lively account from 1984, followed by another wonderful choice with Boult and the LPO in 1977 doing William Walton's Crown Imperial March.

Among the goodies on disc three we get Vaughan Williams's English Folk Song Suite in a charming performance from Vernon Handley and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic from 1991, followed by an equally appealing rendition of Elgar's Chanson de matin, Op. 15, with Lawrence Collingwood and the Royal Philharmonic, recorded in 1964.

It's always good to hear Eric Coates's The Dam Busters March again, this time done up in a zippy, 1977 reading by Sir Charles Groves and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Just as stirring is Arthur Davison and the Wind Virtuosi of England in a 1970 recording of "La Rejouissance" from Handel's Royal Fireworks Music.

Next, we find a performance of Richard Addinsell's Rachmaninov-like movie music, the Warsaw Concerto, performed by Daniel Adni, piano, with Kenneth Alwyn and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1980, a performance that has long been the Wife-O-Meter's favorite in this work. It is quite lovely.

I've only just scratched the surface of the compositions represented, but I should not conclude without mentioning Frederick Delius's "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring," a product practically owned by Sir Thomas Beecham but in this 1986 recording played sympathetically by Richard Hickox and the Northern Sinfonia of England; and "Land of Hope and Glory," the finale of Elgar's Coronation Ode, done up regally in 1977 by Sir Philip Ledger, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and half of England.

The sound on the three discs varies, of course, as one might expect from recordings that span some four decades. Yet most of the sound is excellent: very transparent and clean, with plenty of air around the instruments, good transient response, frequently deep bass, and well-extended highs. While it's not quite audiophile-quality sound, it's more than up to the occasion.

You say your favorite British music isn't here? Surely, one can quibble about the contents of the set. What, no Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1?  No "Rule Britannia"? No "God Save the Queen"? Nothing from Gilbert and Sullivan? Oh, well, at least EMI give it a shot.

JJP