Unlike those of Stanford and Parry, Frederic Cowen's six symphonies have received little attention. Things did not start auspiciously for them. The first recording was an heroic effort recorded at Kosice in 1989 on Marco Polo 8. 223273. This was the version of the Symphony No. 3 The Scandinavian by Adrian Leaper with the CSR State Philharmonic Orchestra. The whole impression conveyed was predominantly flat and without zest. At least that's the way I remember it. There was at least one false start on Symphony No. 6 as well. Shortly after Gough and Davey, the Hull record shop of yore, had issued three LPs of rare British music (German Symphony 2, Bantock Hebridean, Holbrooke Song of Gwyn ap Nudd) there were published rumours that they had recorded the very same Cowen work issued here. In fact the fearless City of Hull Youth Symphony Orchestra under Geoffrey Heald-Smith had performed the symphony in concert in 1979 but if a recording was made by them none was issued.

Lewis Foreman in his notes for this invaluable issue tells us that the scores for Cowen's first two symphonies (1870, 1875) have been lost but the other four are available still so I hope that this venture signals early world premiere recordings of The Fourth (Cambrian, 1883) and Fifth (The Cambridge) (1887).

In a performance brimming with life Douglas Bostock introduces us to Cowen's well-named Idyllic. Like the other symphony here it is in four movements. It recalls in style and mood the Bohemian lyricism of Dvorák's Seventh and Eight symphonies and the Serenade for Strings. It has also has a most engaging lightness of orchestration that is part-Mendelssohn and Schubert and part predictive of Sibelius. The writing is athletic and often sunny as you might expect from the title. Without being at all shallow the material avoids the tragic altogether. This is a reading glowing with bonhommie and resilient tunefulness.

There are two recordings of Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto (Avie and Hyperion). In many reviews the similarities to Dvorák are commented on. It is no wonder that British works should carry such accents since Dvorák was well-loved and much in demand for England's gargantuan choral festivals in the nineteenth century.

C-T's Dvorák heritage can be discerned clearly enough in the singing graces of the allegro appassionato first movement of his only symphony. There were a few moments when he had me thinking of Hamish MacCunn but for the most part the expressive language approximates to Dvorák's late symphonic manner with touches of Othello and the Symphonic Variations. There is plenty of woodland delight in this work which also sounds a little like the orchestral suites of Ludolf Nielsen rather any barnstorming symphonic stuff. It's an affable work dating from the composer’s student days. An RCM concert conducted by Stanford saw its first airing and then it appeared at Bournemouth on 30 April 1900. Its next outing came in 2005 at a workshop performance in Cornwall conducted by David Kendall.

A Croydon man, Coleridge-Taylor was from a later generation than Jamaican-born Cowen. He was a favourite of Stanford at the RCM whose crippling ire C-T was spared except in relation to the admittedly rambling but tunefully affable finale. Bostock and the Aarhus players lend it a sunset grandeur intensely so in the final few moments.

There are many more British symphonies needing the attention of Douglas Bostock, ClassicO and friends. We still need the Cliffe Second, the two from Chisholm, Dunhill, William Baines, Alfred Corum and the Somervell. I hope that the questing spirit and enterprising gleam of Douglas Bostock and ClassicO has not yet been exhausted. This delightful disc is clear evidence that there is plenty of vitality in this series, and I hope much more to come.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International