From the middle of the nineteenth century there was a blossoming of nationalism within the creative arts – very notably in music – in Finland that reflected the political mood in the country. From an international perspective, the dominant stature of Sibelius can often overshadow the wide-ranging works of his peers – something that this album goes some way to redressing. Robert Kajanus was the leading figure in Finnish music before Sibelius became established. His Overtura sinfonica is a late work, from 1926, which epitomises his style. Armas Järnefelt was a friend and fellow student of Sibelius, and eventually became his brother-in-law.

From the middle of the nineteenth century there was a blossoming of nationalism within the creative arts – very notably in music – in Finland that reflected the political mood in the country. From an international perspective, the dominant stature of Sibelius can often overshadow the wide-ranging works of his peers – something that this album goes some way to redressing. Robert Kajanus was the leading figure in Finnish music before Sibelius became established. His Overtura sinfonica is a late work, from 1926, which epitomises his style.

Ballet is not a form for which British composers are generally known, but this CD includes four dance works by Malcolm Arnold: two of the composer's complete shorter ballets, Rinaldo and Armida and Electra, as well as suites from two of his longer ballets, Homage to the Queen and Sweeny Todd, performed with impressive enthusiasm by the BBC Philharmonic under Rumon Gamba and recorded in imposed digital sound by Chandos.

Páll Ísólfsson was the first director of the Reykjavík Music School, which opened in 1930. Like other musicians, he was forced by the lack of opportunity in Iceland to study abroad but, unlike others, he was able to return and work as the Organist at Reykjavík Cathedral to support his activities as a composer. His music for the early Ibsen play The Feast at Solhaug, performed in 1943 in Norwegian on Norway’s National day, was his theatrical début. This was followed in 1945 by the more ambitious score for Úr Myndabók Jónasar Hallgrímssonar.

Ruth Gipps (1921 – 1999) was born in the English seaside resort of Bexhill-on-Sea. Encouraged as a child by an ambitious pianist mother, she appeared locally as a prodigy pianist. She was accepted by the Royal College of Music in 1937, at the age of sixteen, having won the Caird Scholarship. She quickly matured, both as composer and pianist. She studied with Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, and later the oboe with Leon Goossens. During the Second World War she gained a position as oboist with the City of Birmingham Orchestra and devoted a great deal of her time to composing.

Ruth Gipps (1921 – 1999) was born in the English seaside resort of Bexhill-on-Sea. Encouraged as a child by an ambitious pianist mother, she appeared locally as a prodigy pianist. She was accepted by the Royal College of Music in 1937, at the age of sixteen, having won the Caird Scholarship. She quickly matured, both as composer and pianist. She studied with Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, and later the oboe with Leon Goossens. During the Second World War she gained a position as oboist with the City of Birmingham Orchestra and devoted a great deal of her time to composing. Three of the works on this album were composed during the war: the Oboe Concerto, the tone poem Death on the Pale Horse, and the overture Chanticleer (derived from an opera which, sadly, she never completed).

Chandos has been offering some interesting scores in the Movies series, but this differs in their having had to combine two composers on one CD since neither one scored enough films to have an album entirely to himself. Lambert and Berners were close friends, and William Walton was part of their circle as well. All three of them tried to separate their music from the strictly English style and to be more cosmopolitan. Lambert even called music of the English pastoral tradition "cow pat." The first of Lambert's scores was for a documentary about the Merchant Navy - which, being made in 1940, had a scene of a ship being torpedoed. Lambert was considered something of a Russian specialist in music and got the job for the Russian drama on Anna Karenina, released in 1948.

It has been quite a long time since we had any recorded excerpts from Bax's now legendary score for 'Oliver Twist' let alone a complete score. This issue is doubly welcome for this listener whose home country is immortalized in these fine excerpts from 'Malta GC'!