This continues the series of British music of the early part of the century, re-mastered into digital sound from the original RCA analogue releases, several of which I wrote about last month (see pages 31 and 32). This one is welcome in that it restores the otherwise unavailable Bantock overture and Bridge's Suite for strings to the UK catalogue. The large amount of Frank Bridge is particularly welcome, since the musical public is now getting more interested in his music. I confess that I am less enthusiastic about it, finding it overcomplicated and rather unwelcoming—not easily approachable, in fact; but many do not share my view and perhaps I do not yet know it well enough.
About the other composers on the record I would only say that the Butterworth seems to me to be over-recorded these days, for its content is very slight (it has nothing like the quality of his A Shropshire Lad rhapsody), while the Bantock overture is underrated. The many solos in this piece and its remarkably brilliant scoring show the quality of the digital re-mastering very well, though on reflection (and further hearing of these LPs) tuttis often have a slightly synthetic quality.'