Arnold / Liepaja Symphony Orchestra - Orchestral Music [CD]

These two works present two sharply contrasting sides of Malcolm Arnold: his limitless resources of knockabout fun, and a sense of existential tragedy. But each score presents it's own surprises: the jocularity of the Grand Concerto Gastronomique for Eater, Waiter, Food and Orchestra, Op. 76-written for a Hoffnung Festival concert -conceals some seriously good (though not seriously serious) music; and the delicately scored Ninth Symphony, written after five years when it's composer had, in his own words, 'been through hell', irradiates it's emotional restraint and elegiac tone with moments of light and warmth. This is the first recording of the Grand Concerto Gastronomique.