Hyperion Records

Another collection of favourites from an earlier generation - indeed from three earlier generations. Again the titles may not be familiar but in most cases the melodies will be. In Party Mood, for instance, may furrow a few brows until it starts to play, when it's safe to say that everybody in Britain over a certain age will immediately recognise it as the signature tune of the BBC's long-running 'Housewives Choice'. Alpine Pastures (1955) will be scarcely less familiar through its use as signature tune of another long-running radio series, 'My Word'. The first two volumes each included something by Albert W Ketèlbey and this one presents perhaps his best-loved piece, In a Persian Market from 1920, evoking images of camel-drivers, jugglers and snake-charmers, and heard here complete with its chorus of beggars. The earliest piece on the disc dates from 1898 - Lionel Monckton's Soldiers in the Park from The Runaway Girl. It's perhaps better known by the first line of its chorus, 'Oh, listen to the band!' Valse Septembre by Felix Godin has recently enjoyed renewed exposure in the film Titanic. We hear it here in the original orchestration. 21 delightful tracks altogether, sparklingly played, as usual, by Ronald Corp and his band of merry men and women of The New London Orchestra. Their manifest joy in making this recording is very apparent in this happy disc.