In 1969, when Decca's first ''Salute To Percy Grainger'' appeared, there were not many works by this composer available on record. Since then Grainger's delightfully quirky, engaging musical personality has won many more friends, and his output is much better represented in the catalogue. Even so, it's good to welcome back the original Decca programme on CD, for it is planned in very skilful fashion to show contrasted aspects of Grainger's art; from the sad, beautiful setting of Willow Willow to the strange, exotically scored My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone and the cheerful, blunt Scotch Strathspey and Reel. Performances, all in some way under Britten's direction, are highly sympathetic, if sometimes a little more refined than the extraordinarily energetic exuberant manner in which the composer himself perforrned his music on record.
To the original LP Decca have added five welcome items from ''Salute To Percy Grainger'' Vol.2, which were recorded under the direction of Steuart Bedford: it's particularly good to have the atmospheric choral setting of Brigg Fair, which inspired Delius's masterly set of orchestral variations.'