Introducing British Orchestral Music: Thirty Essential Works

Lists can be a useful thing – to those who make them and those who read them. I was asked by a friend the other day what pieces of British music are essential listening to a relative newcomer to the genre. It was a tall order. For fifty years I have been exploring this repertoire and have found that my favourites constantly change. But here goes. A few rules first. All the pieces I have chosen date from the late 1880s until 1945 at the latest. This avoids ‘avant-garde’ and ‘modernist music’. There is much in the post-war era that I would regard as indispensable, but I have limited this list to works that are part of the so-called English Musical Renaissance which began with Parry’s Prometheus Unbound. (This is still a disputed issue, and others have suggested several other seminal works that began the revival). Also, ‘English’ in this context includes Scottish, Welsh and Irish composers such as Hamish MacCunn, Charles Villiers Stanford and Hamilton Harty. Secondly, I have limited this list to purely orchestral music: I have not featured symphonies or concertos. I have tried to present these pieces in chronological order, rather than by composer. Furthermore, I have not made suggestions as to what is the ‘best’ recorded versions.  Finally, this is a personal and subjective choice. I could have included many more examples. But this list seems to provide the putative listener with a good introduction to this period of music. There are works here that are familiar to most British Music enthusiasts and one or two rarities. Almost all these works are available on YouTube or other streaming services.

1. Hamish MacCunn: Overture – The Land of the Mountain and the Flood (1887)
2. Edward Elgar: Serenade for strings (1892)
3. Charles Hubert Hastings Parry: Lady Radnor’s Suite (1894)
4. Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro for strings (1905)
5. Cyril Scott: Aubade for orchestra (1906)
6. Granville Bantock: The Pierrot and the Minute (1908)
7. Frank Bridge: Suite for Strings (1909)
8. Hamilton Harty: With the Wild Geese, symphonic poem (1910)
9. Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis for double string orchestra (1910)
10. George Butterworth: A Shropshire Rhapsody (1911)
11. Frederick Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring (1912)
12. George Butterworth: The Banks of Green Willow (1913)
13. Gustav Holst: St Paul’s Suite for strings (1913, pub.1922)
14. Frank Bridge: Summer – a tone poem for orchestra (1914)
15. Edward Elgar: Sospiri for strings, harp and organ (1914)
16. Charles Hubert Hastings Parry: The English Suite for strings (1914)
17. Charles Villiers Stanford: Irish Rhapsody No.4 ‘The Fisherman of Lough Neagh and what he saw’ (1914)
18. Arnold Bax: The Garden of Fand (1916)
19. Arnold Bax: Tintagel (1919)
20. Gerald Finzi: A Severn Rhapsody for chamber orchestra (1923)
21. Gustav Holst: Suite from The Perfect Fool (1923)
22. William Walton: Portsmouth Point (1924-5)
23. Peter Warlock: Capriol Suite (1926)
24. Ernest John Moeran: Two Pieces for Small Orchestra (1931) ‘Lonely Waters’ and ‘Whythorne's Shadow’ (1931)
25. Benjamin Britten: Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge (1937)
26. Constant Lambert: Horoscope (a ballet) (1938)
27. Ralph Vaughan Williams: Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus (1939)
28. Lennox Berkeley: Serenade for Strings (1939)
29. John Ireland: Concertino Pastorale for strings (1939)
30. Eric Coates: The Three Elizabeth’s Suite (1944)