The fifth release in Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra’s groundbreaking ‘21st Century Symphony Project’ focuses on Steve Elcock (b1957), composer-in‑residence at this year’s Elgar Festival, and features the eighth of his 10 symphonies and his Violin Concerto. The concerto was begun around 1996, and its substantial opening Allegro vivo is energetic and Classical in outlook. Its lovely central Molto tranquillo (the longest movement, added in 2003) is more reflective, wistful at times, and is beautifully played by Zoë Beyers. The briefer final Passacaglia, added in 2006 for a prospective performance that did not materialise, is electrifying. Following a revision in 2020, the present performers gave the premiere in Bromsgrove in May 2022; this recording was made the day beforehand.

Elcock’s Eighth Symphony was premiered the previous July as part of the Three Choirs Festival and recorded shortly after. The composer writes in the booklet that following its two weighty predecessors (issued by Toccata Classics), he wanted to ‘write a smaller-scale piece’, and turned to a juvenile string quartet from 1981 to see what could be reworked. In the event, he produced a taut and dramatic single movement that is in no sense a lighter piece of relaxation in his output (though, as he relates, he required some convincing by his peers of its symphonic status). No 8 stays for the most part in the expressively dark world, rooted in the northern European symphonism where his best music resides, powerful, dramatic and compelling attention, and does not betray its early origins; its serener though ultimately unresolved close may be among the most ‘English’ music he has penned. The performance by the modest forces of the English Symphony Orchestra is exemplary, and they create a ‘big sound’, as one finds in (for example) Robert Simpson’s Second and Seventh, also scored for a Beethovenian ensemble. A thoroughly gripping, involving album, urgently recommended.