In this expert, sweet-toned and affectionate music-making, these fine artists audibly enjoy themselves hugely, responding to Arnold’s idiomatic and resourceful writing as to the manner born. I especially enjoyed Galway and friends in the sparkling early Three Shanties for wind quintet (written in 1943 for the composer’s LPO colleagues) and the delicious Divertimento for flute, oboe and clarinet (1953). Cast in six pithy movements (and masterfully played here), the latter piece contains invention of great freshness and charm, with definite echoes of the English Dances from the same period.
In the wistful central Andante of the First Flute Concerto (1954), Sir Neville Marriner and his beautifully prepared Academy strings provide a poignant backdrop to Galway’s ravishing playing, and this music’s kinship with the great slow movement of Arnold’s Second Symphony (completed the previous year) is most perceptively brought out. In fact, the performances of both concertos strike me as probably the best we’ve had since dedicatee Richard Adeney’s admirable 1979 versions (now restored on an well-filled Eminence release devoted to six of Arnold’s wind and brass concertos). Galway himself was, of course, the lucky recipient of the Flute Sonata (whose premiere he gave at the 1977 Cardiff Festival), and he and Philip Moll do full justice to this work’s entrancing mix of lyricism (the lilting Andantino centrepiece boasts a particularly indelible main idea) and exhilarating virtuosity.
Recording quality is nicely integrated, too, with Galway never overprominently balanced, though Moll’s piano can sound just a touch rough in its lowest reaches. A delightful anthology all the same.'