Alwyn's First Symphony is an essentially flamboyant work, dating from 1950 and appropriately dedicated to Sir John Barbirolli, who conducted its premiere. The first movement is passionately rhapsodic, the Scherzo is, in the words of the composer, ''roistering and tumultuous'' (and scored with spectacular vividness), but there is plenty of repose in the bittersweet Adagio, with its main theme introduced on cor anglais. The finale is boisterously rhetorical and extrovert. It is not a difficult piece and associations with the composer's film music spring readily to mind, as the structure moves easily from event to event. Perhaps this is why Richard Hickox's new version and the composer's 1977 recording for Lyrita are so alike. Uncannily, in both the timing of the Adagio ma con moto is exactly 9A52B. Of course the ebb and flow of the music is different in each case, but Hickox is naturally attuned to the idiom and it obviously fires him, for his account has all the passion and depth of feeling of the composer's own version. The Chandos recording is spaciously, richly digital. It is obviously more modern and has a slightly wider dynamic range—one notices this especially in the Scherzo, but the Lyrita stands up splendidly to any direct comparisons, and certainly does not lack body, impact or colour.
So one could be happy with both, or either, and choice between two records depends on the coupling. The composer offers the Fourth Symphony, a more mature piece, less inclined to let its ideas run away, as in the irrepressible finale of the First.
Hickox gives us the Piano Concerto, a much earlier work, written specifically for Sir Clifford Curzon, who was a fellow student of the composer at the Royal Academy of Music. It is ambitious in style and manner, with the epic feeling that was to make the composer so good with films. In one movement, divided into four sections, it opens with the genial toccata which frames the Adagio tranquillo, and after returning leads on to a wistful epilogue. It is not thematically particularly memorable, but like the Bliss Concerto has a certain panache, and in this splendid account from Howard Shelley, combines a real sweep with gentle, introspective lyricism. The recording is on a comparably large scale and is very believable.'