For anyone who has enjoyed this jolly ballet whether in the theatre or on television, this disc makes a happy memento, a performance conducted by Barry Wordsworth with his characteristic rhythmic flair and well played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the orchestra of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. The music illustrating this surprisingly faithful adaptation of Harold Brighouse's classic play about the hard-working North is catchy and unpretentious, with point numbers like Will's ''Clog Dance'', not to mention ''Lily of Laguna'', echoing the style of the Edwardian music-hall. More serious numbers like the romantic Pas de deux sound more like film music, and there are some dances which contain what film-composers call ''mickey-mousing'', with rhythms set against stage-movement, note by note. As the composer explains he saw Hobson's Choice as ''part opera, part film score and part musical, and I allowed numerous allusions, parodies and borrowings into the score''. He chose ''Lily of Laguna'' as a well-known song for Albert to play on the piano to entertain the wedding guests, not realizing quite how apt it was. The composer was the Lancastrian, Leslie Stuart, who was organist at Salford Cathedral in 1880, the very year and town in which the original Brighouse play was set.
Reade also acknowledges the ''creative collaboration'' of Lawrence Ashmore over the orchestration, which is consistently bright and colourful. With such attractive instrumentation, the pity is that the recorded sound is odd, with not nearly enough middle to balance the edgy top frequencies (violins too fizzy) and boomy bass. I suspect that it must be a direct transfer from the video version, which is advertised in the booklet. The reasonable mid-price of the CD is some compensation.'