Oboist Emily Pailthorpe has put together an intriguing programme from the limited repertoire available. She begins with a lusciously long-breathed account of Strauss’s late concerto, then makes lyrical work of Samuel Barber’s valedictory Canzonetta, both backed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Martyn Brabbins. The disc takes its name from Richard Blackford’s oboe concerto The Better Angels of Our Nature, written for Pailthorpe in 2013. Fifteen minutes long, it is initially evocative of mid-20th-century Americana, then has at its fulcrum a haunting rendition of Taps, the military bugle call played at sunset or a funeral. The music that follows this is melancholy, yet ultimately consoling, and though the downbeat ending is almost anticlimactic, Pailthorpe and Brabbins make it work. In between come Barber’s Summer Music and Janáček’s Mládí (Youth), in which Pailthorpe is not strictly in the spotlight, but is a distinctive voice leading a stylish chamber ensemble of BBCSO principals.
