Not Damned By Faint Praise

It sounds like damning with faint praise to describe this as a very pleasant record but there is a place in life for small pleasures and beautiful sounds that can be appreciated without too much stenuous thought. The disk in question is a budget release titled Five Italian Oboe Concertos and these are played by the Peterborough String Orchestra under the direction of the oboe soloist Nicholas Daniel. The Peterborough ensemble may not be among the world's most stellar groups but they are representative of the sterling work done by many provincial outfits around the world, not only in England. The playing here is fine and provides good accompaniment to Daniel, a former BBC Young Musician of the year winner. Daniel plays a modern oboe in these performances but writes about how his playing has been informed by period instrument practitioners. The composers whose concertos are featured here mainly straddle the 17th and 18th centuries ( Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello and Cimarosa ) with only Bellini straying into the early part of the 19th. I am very fond of the sound of the oboe in any repertoire but especially in the baroque. Maybe a full disk is a little too much of a confection but the sunshine sound goes down well for stress free afternoon listening.