ANTHONY COLLINS

Vanity Fair
Festival Royal Overture
Eire
The Song of Erin (Lamentation)
Victoria the Great
The Saga of Odette: Valse Lente
The Lady with a Lamp
Prelude & Valse Variations
Santa Cecilia: a madrigal
Louis XV Silhouettes
Symphony for Strings (no.1)

BBC Concert Orchestra
John Wilson (conductor)

Recorded at The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford
28-30 September 2005

Dutton Epoch continues its pioneering collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra with a first survey of the music of Anthony Collins, a conductor celebrated for his performances of Sibelius. He is now revealed as a cherishable composer, particularly of light music and film scores. Well-known for the ear tickling strains of the inimical Vanity Fair, Collins is represented here by music from three of his scores for Anna Neagle films: Victoria the Great, Odette and The Lady with the Lamp, together with a variety of tuneful light music including the enchanting Eire Suite.

"... performances are idiomatic and natural; John Wilson's brisk manner allows familiarity and crisp rhythms to co-exist. Michael Ponder has captured the performances in natural, warm sound, and Lewis Foreman's biography and commentaries suprised me by revealing howlittle, for all the familarity of Collins's name, I really knew about him.
Most of the music on this CD, then, is for those times when you come in from a pig of a day in the office and a miserable journey home and just want to relax; Festival Royal and The Song of Erin trancend the 'light-music' label and deserve to resurface in concert programmes."
Martin Anderson, International Record Review, May 2006

"John Wilson is one of the most versatile younger conductors in England, and he derives appropriately eloquent readings. Acoustically, the disc is rich and bright."
Paul A Snook, Fanfare, November/December 2006

It's hard to imagine more spirited playing or more committed conducting than we get here from the BBC Concert Orchestra and John Wilson, and Dutton's sound is appropriately vivid. Jolly good!
American Record Guide, September/October 2006

CDLX 7162