The 75th birthday of Sir Charles Groves could hardly be marked more appropriately than by this generously filled CD of works for string orchestra written by four major English composers of our own century.
These are fresh and vital performances, and they avoid the excessive nostalgia that could deprive the music of its strength. Thus Elgar's Serenade for strings opens briskly, and its songful Larghetto breathes deep feeling without affectation. Compared to the Elgar, Britten's Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge seemed less English in character when the Boyd Neel Orchestra first played them in Salzburg over 50 years ago, but they too now reveal their nationality in a non-nationalist way, just as Bach and Beethoven sound German, they provide a thrilling challenge for any string orchestra which the RPO players (a big body of strings) meet splendidly, and again the playing is affectionate but un-fussy, with real wit and a no less convincing intensity of feeling where these qualities are called for, though I would have welcomed a little more delicate lingering in the ''Romance'' and dancelike lightness in the ''Bourree Classique'' and felt that the ''Fugue'' was a trace deliberate.
After the Britten comes music superbly evocative of England, and in particular of the great English cathedrals with their dramatic use of space and light, in the shape of Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis, a work which in its choice and treatment of a theme also reaches back to the glories of Tudor times; this is a radiant, richly textured and spacious account. Sir Charles has an especial fondness for Tippett's nobly challenging Corelli Fantasia and he and the orchestra steer a sure course through its manifold textural and rhythmic complexities. The recording was made last September in St Barnabas's Church in Mitcham, where the rather reverberant acoustic suits the Vaughan Williams perhaps best of all while being probably not ideal for the Britten and Tippett. But the sound is attractive throughout and overall this is a most desirable collection.'