“Carl’s War” brings together five of Carl Davis’s television scores, newly recorded, with settings linked to the Second World War. Channel 4’s The World at War was a prestigious production in 26 episodes, narrated by Laurence Olivier and produced by Jeremy Isaacs, that broke new ground in Isaacs’s wish to have people telling of their personal experience of the conflict. The signature tune of the series accompanying the words of the title on screen, which were engulfed by flames, lasted less than a minute, so for this concert version Davis incorporated a march that illustrated the advancing German army. This title theme has lost none of its power to grip an audience and it remains one of his most potent and memorable themes. Goodnight Mr Tom was a big success when first shown on ITV in 1998 and has been something of a fixture in the channel’s schedule ever since. Davis has divided the score into four parts for this recording, evoking scenes of both city and countryside, which evinces his compassion for the boy, a disturbed evacuee from the London blitz, who finds companionship with Mr Tom in a touching portrait by the actor John Thaw.

Echoes That Remain, a 90-minute documentary by Arnold Schwartzman, celebrates the shtetl (small villages) and their Jewish inhabitants in Eastern Europe, with a profusion of folk-like tunes of Yiddish origin, many of them sung to the composer by his mother and aunt, and incorporated into this score. The music reflects their daily rural life of play and prayer, ending with their eventual enforced exodus. Anne Frank Remembered, a 1995 epic documentary by Jon Blair, follows the much-told story of her brief life in music that by no means discourages the hope that the ending might have been otherwise, the affirmative message being that this was a life we cannot ignore. The Snow Goose, adapted from Paul Gallico’s novel for a BBC TV film in 1971, scored for full orchestra, makes a contrasting and welcome respite with bright outdoor music that wears its heart on its sleeve. All this music is winningly played by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer’s enthusiastic direction.