Elgar Howarth badgered Walton during the early 1980s for a brass-band piece. The rediscovery of the score of The First Shoot ( ''a mock ballet of men and pheasants''—plot by Osbert Sitwell, choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton and decor by Cecil Beaton—part of a C. B. Cochran revue) saved the composer the trouble of inventing new material. He promptly arranged the nine-minute suite for brass. It has all the old dry Martini larkiness of Facade and its spirit is nicely evoked in this recording. Tippett's Festal Brass with Blues was written for the Hong Kong Festival of 1984, where its intense seriousness must have seemed even longer than it does in a more temperate climate. London Collegiate Brass rise to its technical challenges, making this tough work the most successful in the programme. I would have preferred a cornet rather than a trumpet for the central solo.
Britten's Russian Funeral was written in haste for a concert of the London Labour Choral Union in 1936. Its sparse idealism makes its revival a satisfaction for the curious rather than a meal for the Britten-hungry. Ireland's Downland Suite strains frequently under the restricting corset of modality, but finds temporary ease of a kind in a harmonic mousse of sweet crushed strawberries. It's the sort of music which interferes very little with one's private life, and it's played in a rather easy-going way which assumes that we all know what's coming next. On the whole the playing is robust rather than refined. The recording is good. As a (short) entertainment, I can take it or leave it.'