This is not strictly a compilation of what the British would term "light music," for there is music of substantial weight on these two discs: e.g., Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, and Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, but for the most part, Marriner and his charges offer less weighty fare that is familiar to many classical music-lovers and certainly dear to the heart of Anglophiles like this writer. From Vaughan Williams's perennial favorites, Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Song Suite, and George Butterworth's nigh-ubiquitous The Banks of Green Willow to less familiar fare like Delius's Serenade (composed to honor the 70th birthday of Frederick Delius) and the suite from Elgar's incomplete opera The Spanish Lady, this compilation of recordings–originally made in 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1979–embodies the spirit of England and does so faultlessly. This is a well chosen and exemplarily executed collection of English orchestral miniatures proffered by a conductor and orchestra whose names have become synonymous with the repertoire.

The new recording is entirely dedicated to British music and offers a great selection of works by famous but also lesser-known composers: recorded are works by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Peter Warlock (1894-1930) and Karl Jenkins (b. 1944). The album opens with the earliest masterpiece, the famous Serenade in E minor for string orchestra by Edward Elgar, one of the greatest British composers and leading European composers of his generation. Among the hallmarks of Elgar's compositions are ingratiating character pieces that often share elements with English folk music.