There is a most appealing picture of Sir George Dyson in the booklet accompanying this disc—sitting working at his desk, he looks the epitome of the Elgarian English gentleman, with his dapper bow tie and well-groomed moustache. Yet he was a Yorkshireman of working-class background who made his own way in the musical world. He is best known for his vocal music, notably The Canterbury Pilgrims, but these three works—all dating from the peak of the composer's creative life, 1949-51—really make the listener sit up and ask why we have not heard them before. The athletic opening of the Concerto da camera (written in nine parts) has all the energy of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, and the romantic slow movement brings lovely, veiled writing for a solo string quartet. The finale opens with a warm Larghetto and then develops a joyful brio to match the first movement.
The Concerto da chiesa is more melancholy. Making religious chants or hymn themes its basis it immediately brings a hint of the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia and comparably uses the contrast of a solo quartet and ripieno throughout, although the poignant lament which develops in the first movement (based on O come, O come Emmanuel) recalls the desolation of Britten's ''Funeral March'' in the Frank Bridge Variations. The second movement, itself a set of variations, is more folksy in feeling, and the finale is emotionally robust and full-blooded. Both works are full of marvellous invention and should be in the mainstream of our string repertoire.
The Concerto leggiero for piano and strings would perhaps fit less easily into today's concert schedules: it is neither obvious 'pop', or self-consciously weighty, serious and symphonic. But its lightness of touch is immediately engaging at the opening, with its rippling piano roulades and lilting strings. There is a Ravelian delicacy of texture, although the nostalgia is English, and the bursts of passion—as at 9'16'' in the first movement—from the high violins erupt from within a natural English reticence which has a hidden, underlying creative warmth. The slow movement is elegiac, gentle and haunting and the finale, although marked vivace, retains the work's nostalgia. The main theme of the first movement returns at the end of the Andante and then rounds off the finale satisfyingly in a piece that may be unpretentious in feeling but is most successfully held together. It is splendidly played, with Eric Parkin a naturally sympathetic soloist, riding the considerable bravura with the lightest touch and spontaneously responding to the rhapsodic changes of mood. So are the two works for strings alone, with the feeling of joy coming through ardently from players freshly discovering the rich rewards of this splendid music.
Chandos's recording, made in St Jude's, north-west London, is full, transparent (most agreeably so in the work for piano and strings) and well balanced—well up to the high standards of believable realism we expect from this company. Here is a CD that I recommend with all possible enthusiasm, and which is earmarked for my next ''Critics' Choice''.'