Best Of Britten

More recycling from a major label back catalogue, this time Decca with a disk of orchestral music by Britten. Two of the works and the main attraction of this issue are conducted by the composer himself, The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra and Four Sea Interludes and Passagalia ( from Peter Grimes ) with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. These are Britten's major orchestral writings, excepting concertos, and are very different in mood and intent. The YPG is famously based around an anthemic theme by Purcell and is an exercise in orchestral colour demonstrating the various sections of the orchestra for the benefit and illumination of children. Britten was a coastal dweller and the sea was the background to his two most successful operas, Grimes and Billy Budd. The Sea Interludes from Grimes can take their place among the most notable evocations of the sea in music, such as La Mer. In a similar way, they portray the varying moods of the sea such as dawn, moonlight, storm etc. but they don't occupy the same impressionistic musical world. The disk contains two other works played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra under Richard Bonynge. These are Soirees Musicales and Matinees Musicales and are witty arrangements of music by Rossini that were later choreographed.