Taken one piece at a time, the five works on this disc entitled Box of Delights, a collection of British light music, are utterly charming. More than one at a time, however, and the listener is likely to get the aural equivalent of a toothache. With the masterful but slightly sentimental conducting of
Barry Wordsworth and the polished though nostalgic playing of the
London Philharmonic in three of the five and ebullient conducting of Simon Joly and the slightly garish
Royal Philharmonic in the other two, this disc is superbly performed with not a trace of irony, and instead a generous dollop of affection. One might try Phyllis Tate's jazzy, atmospheric London Fields from 1958, with its delirious xylophone solo in the second movement, or Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's slinky, slippery Valse de la reine, the third of Four Characteristic Waltzes from 1898, and his sweetly seductive Andante and Andante molto from Three-fours Valse Suite from 1899, or Granville Bantock's Tchaikovsky pastiche Russian Scenes from 1898 with its blustery Cossack Dance, or Cecil Armstrong Gibbs' Fancy Dress dance suite from 1935 with its soulful Dusk (Waltz), or Elisabeth Lutyens' evocatively colorful En Voyage suite for full orchestra from 1944 with its slyly sensual Yvette (La Dieppeoise) -- but unless you're up to date with the dentist, more than one may be more than enough. One of Lyrita's later, digital releases, these 1988 and 1989 recordings have as much depth, detail, clarity, and warmth as their earlier stereo releases -- which is to say, as much as anyone needs.