Virgil Thomson's homely music has never made much of an impact outside the States and on its first release in 1977 this record was welcomed as a friendly ambassador. Two of the scores, The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, are suites drawn from Thomson's music for documentary films produced by the US Resettlement Administration during the mid 1930s. Both borrow freely from popular music; The Plow that Broke the Plains is, it would seem, the first American score of any substance to quote cowboy songs. Neither score transfers entirely easily or naturally to the concert hall, The River, the meatier of the two makes the more satisfying piece, but even here one longs for the images of the Mississippi it was meant to accompany. On another plane altogether is the cheekily orchestrated concertino for harp, strings and percussion, Autumn. Though commissioned in 1964, it too is largely an arrangement, in this case of the Second Piano Sonata, written 35 years earlier. Clearly pieces of such slender dimensions are to be taken only as a hint of Thomson's true status; but as a demonstration of his craftsmanship expressed even within such modest limits, it makes a useful sampler.'