The BBC Concert Orchestra, Ronald Corp - John Foulds, Vol. 4 (2014)

The fourth volume of Dutton Epoch’s exploration of John Foulds’ light and theatre music is every bit as entertaining as the previous volumes, with many delightful discoveries, and concentrates on typically extrovert and tuneful music from the 1920s and ’30s. It is complemented by the surviving two movements (the Lento e Scherzetto) of a second cello concerto (it would actually have been the first) from 1906, and our first experience of Foulds’ grandly Wagnerian unheard epic The Vision of Dante, in the premiere performance of the Prelude. The atmospheric suite from George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan – once one of Foulds’ most popular works – and the Prelude to Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus bring a more serious tone to the proceedings. The boisterous and catchy Grand Durbar March, however, reminds us that Foulds spent his last years in India.