It is good to have these warm-hearted American Ar performances, very well recorded, of four of Malcolm Arnold's most attractive earlier works, each in his favourite form of three compact movements. The Serenade for small orchestra, Op. 26, the first of the four, with the most ambitious orchestration, is particularly valuable, when otherwise it is unavailable on CD. The only other recording I have traced was from the Bournemouth Sinfonietta under Ronald Thomas coupled on EMI with both of the flute concertos and the Sinfonietta No. 3 (7/80—nla). That is an issue that could usefully form the basis of a CD compilation. In any case the San Diego Chamber Orchestra gives a winning account, full of high spirits, of what Hugo Cole rightly describes in his excellent study of Arnold's music (Faber: 1989) as ''one of the most delightful of Arnold's lighter works''. Though an edge is given to the violins, making them sound less sweet in exposed passages than they should, the recording has a fullness and warmth to bring out the brilliance and refinement of the orchestration. The finale in particular is a delight, with the brass having a field-day.
In the first two of the three Arnold sinfoniettas it is fascinating to compare the American performances with those of Ross Pople and the London Festival Orchestra on their Hyperion disc, which has the obvious advantage of offering all three sinfoniettas. In both works the Americans are the more relaxed, the more openly expressive. One can quibble over the slow speed for the opening movement of No. 1, which is hardly an Allegro commodo. Pople, as elsewhere is sharper as well as faster, but few will question the winning charm of the American performance. In the second movement, it is Pople who is the slower, and his tempo might be similarly questioned as being too slow for an Allegretto, though both are very persuasive, with the opening horn solo ravishingly played in each. In No. 2 the balance is in favour of the San Diego performance, with its lightness and charm and an extra hushed beauty in the slow movement.
Consistently the American players rise to the challenge which Arnold makes in the finales of all these works. Where they are rather less successful is in evoking the Bachian overtones of the Double Violin Concerto. The soloists are placed rather too close in relation to the rest, which does not help, and more seriously the central Andantino is too romantic in style. Even less than elsewhere the soloists' heavy vibrato and occasional portamentos hardly match the idea of a movement inspired at one remove from Bach's supreme example. Yet, like the rest, this is a persuasive performance, and I only hope we shall have more Arnold from American players.'