Evocations of rolling English landscape are ever-present in the music of John Ireland (1879-1962), whether implicit, as in A Downland Suite, or implied, as in the brooding Cello Sonata in G minor, played here with arresting vigour by Raphael Wallfisch in an arrangement for strings by Matthew Forbes. Wallfisch also finds grace in several tuneful miniatures, notably a Cavatina from 1904. David Curtis and the Orchestra of the Swan make light work of the bucolic Downland Suite, but it is perhaps the wistful Soliloquy, a piano piece from 1922 arranged for cello and strings by Graham Parlett, that most intrigues in a collection that charms but rarely excites.
