Whether comic or dramatic,
Sir Malcolm Arnold's concert overtures are always entertaining fare: lavishly orchestrated, generously stocked with infectious melodies, and featuring not a few strokes of inspiration. Most notorious and hilarious of
Arnold's bonbons is A Grand Grand Festival Overture, composed in 1956 for the Hoffnung Festival and featuring such rare instruments as Hoover vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, and a firing squad to dispatch the noisy soloists. (For those who get impatient with the ridiculously long coda, rest assured, it does eventually end). The other selections on this 2005 Chandos release are not as silly, but they are delightful for their vivid scene painting and stylistic gambits; note the jazz inflections in The Smoke, the lively Celtic tunes in Tam o' Shanter, and the screwball polytonality of Beckus the Dandipratt (the work that gained
Arnold access to the film industry). Even the more seriously intended overtures, such as Peterloo, The Fair Field, and A Sussex Overture are arresting in their orchestration and melodic invention, and
Arnold's buoyant personality shines through, even when the musical arguments are most contentious. The
BBC Philharmonic, directed by
Rumon Gamba, turns in luscious performances full of bright colors and vital rhythms, and Chandos offers wonderfully realistic sound quality.