Search - Percy Grainger, Richard Hickox, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra :: Orchestral Works 3, Vol. 15

Chandos's Grainger Edition brings yet another cornucopia of delights delivered with indefatigable dedication and twinkling charisma by Richard Hickox and the BBC Philharmonic. The formula is the same as on this team's first and second volumes of Grainger's orchestral music, with tried-and-trusted nuggets such as Green Bushes and Colonial Song (both given here in particularly lavish orchestrations from 1905-06 and 1919, respectively) sitting alongside genuine rarities like The Merry King (based on a folk tune from West Sussex and boasting a seductively ornate piano contribution) and the amazingly colorful English Dance No.1 (a riot of a piece that prompted Gabriel Fauré to exclaim: "It's as if the total population were a-dancing!"). Perhaps the most startlingly original items here were conceived for wind band, namely the bracingly tangy Hill Song No.2 and that ambitious, extraordinarily titled essay The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart (which also draws on material from the first movement of Grainger's glorious Danish Folk Song Suite). Chandos's thrillingly realistic sonics fairly leap from the loudspeakers. All told, this disc is not to be missed. --Andrew Achenbach