In 1993 Marco Polo issued a pair of CDs of “Lokomotiv-Musik”. They concentrated on Viennese-style dance music, whereas this new offering ventures into much greater contrasts of style. Some of the items are new to me, as I imagine they will be to others. Therein lies part of the appeal. It's fascinating to hear so many different composers express their love of trains in such varied ways. They take us into the Paris Métro and New York subway, as well as on more relaxing pleasure rides in Scandinavia, the south of France, and across the continents. I'm enchanted especially by Revueltas's Construction of the Railroad, with its wonderfully tuneful middle section portraying a train chugging contentedly through the countryside.

Stárek has obviously inherited a love of the subject from his railway-worker father, and he takes delight in bringing out any railway effects in the music. That's so, for instance, in Bohuslav Leopold's orchestration of Dvorák's Humoresque, whose railway connections (beyond a somewhat indelicate lyric and the composer's known fanaticism for railways) seem to be essentially subjective. Stárek doesn't always get up the full head of steam that he might, preferring to savour his engines getting up speed and slowing down, with a relaxing journey through the countryside in between. It's a fascinating and well played collection, though, and should appeal to anyone interested in the representation of railways in music. There's more than enough other material around for a return journey, too