Fans of Malcolm Arnold will want this disc as a matter of course; the music is wholly characteristic. Though nominally ballet music, there’s little here that sounds especially danceable, which doesn’t mean it’s not rhythmic. Rather, these scores sound just like film music, and accordingly they are most interesting where they are most atmospheric–Rinaldo and Armida and Sweeney Todd, principally. Electra is largely atonal but sounds like Arnold anyway, while Homage to the Queen is one of those British pageant pieces that you’d have to be a hardcore monarchist to love. Still, it’s brilliantly scored and lots of fun, and you kind of get the idea that Arnold wasn’t taking it all that seriously (heretical though the notion may be). The performances are as vigorous and colorful as the music itself, and the sonics are first-rate. Not great Arnold, perhaps, but as I said, it’s all very typical, and for many listeners that will be more than enough.
