No tub-thumping here from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Rumon Gamba – rather, a reminder that imperial Britain relied on mainland Europe, including Russia, for its musical influences. Frederic Austin’s Spring basks in dappled Straussian sunshine; Vaughan Williams makes The Solent sound like the Rhine, only with bigger ships. Granville Bantock’s The Witch of Atlas has sparkling orchestral detail that is as much his as it is Tchaikovsky’s. More deeply felt is Blackdown, in which William Alwyn gazes out across the Surrey Hills and sees something a lot like Sinbad’s roiling sea from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Balfour Gardiner’s A Berkshire Idyll, in its first recording, is pleasing if slight; Gurney’s A Gloucestershire Rhapsody – a recent discovery, like the Vaughan Williams – is more individual even if it does nod to the composer’s near neighbour Elgar. For all the spot-the-influence games to be played here, there’s still a lot to charm even the most resistant listener.
