In 1988 EMI issued a ''Constant Lambert Conducts'' LP in their Treasury Series which I reviewed in October of that year. This new CD duplicates much of the same material, but there are two changes. Firstly, The Rio Grande is heard in the 1949 recording instead of the original 1930 version. Initially I felt this to be a retrograde step, for the premiere Columbia recording (EMI, 10/88—nla), with Sir Hamilton Harty at the piano, has a particularly attractive quality. Yet several hearings have increased my admiration for Kyla Greenbaum's slightly more emphatic account of the piano part and in general the singing, especially that of Gladys Ripley, is superior. The recording, too, has extra body and realism. Since the 1930 account has appeared in recent years on three issues it seems sensible that the 1949 version, not reissued since 1967, should be granted a fresh lease of life. The work itself is a unique amalgam of high, jazzy spirits, and almost Delian poetry.
Horoscope is also a superbly crafted score, and if Lambert was not quite a great composer then nobody else could have created on the one hand such joyful exuberance as is present in the ''Bacchanale'', or such sweet, tender nostalgia as in the ''Sarabande''. EMI have once more effectively brought together the fruits of two separate sessions with different orchestras to make up a performance of the whole suite under Lambert's direction, and he conducts with unequalled panache and poetry. Again, he was not quite a great conductor, but he could produce performances of enormous eloquence and vitality. The ''Ballabile'' and excerpts from the Apparitions ballet are superbly conducted, as is the Street Corner Overture by Lambert's friend Alan Rawsthorne.
Over an hour's sheer delight then, but in the second change from the LP issue EMI have replaced Bliss's march The Phoenix with Gavin Gordon's ballet score The Rake's Progress. It's true that the former does not represent Bliss at his best, but Gordon's score sounds empty and uninspired, even with a fine ballet conductor at the helm. How much better it would have been to include, say, an example of Lambert conducting Russian music, in which he excelled. Yet nobody should be put off by this one unsatisfactory item. Lambert's art as a conductor has been inadequately represented on record since his lamentably early death 41 years ago, and I hope that more of his vivacious and warm-hearted performances will appear on disc.'