Another fine addition to Alba's growing collection of string orchestral repertoire in SACD, played by the now well-known Finnish Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Sakari Oramo, appointed Chief Conductor in 2013, (after Juha Kangas, the Ostrobothian's founder and still conductor) has made an inspired programme of four English pieces by Britten, Elgar, Finzi and Bridge. The subtitle of this album is "Favourite English Strings", referring to the special affinity of English musicians for composing and playing string works of various kinds from Medieval times to the Present.

For those not yet familiar with the Ostrobothnians, their ensemble is usually constructed with the standard strings of First and Second Violins, Violas, Cello and Double Bass in the proportions 5/5/4/3/2. Given a gripping recording it is easy to think you are listening to the power of string sound from a full orchestra rather a chamber one.The violins have a pure, clear sound; violas and cellos are well-articulated and richly toned; their virtuoso passages show a tight ensemble and brilliance, while the two basses are wonderfully gruff, cleanly projected and deeply supportive.

Oramo clearly understands the characteristic of each string section, particularly at the lower end of the assembly - not always shown by some other conductors. His seeming understanding of the English poetry which inspired the album's contents has been communicated to a set of very willing players. Up to now. my taste for Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge has been for the composer's recording with the English Chamber Orchestra, but now the Ostrobothnians on this Alba disc come shoulder to shoulder with Britten's performance itself.

The first piece, longest and probably the most important, is the young Britten's deeply-felt tribute to his music teacher. Frank Bridge, was a composer and string player in a famous quartet and mentor to Britten from 1927. An opportunity came to Britten during 1937 to start a tribute piece in a commission for a string work by conductor Boyd Neel. Britten took as his theme the second of Bridge's Three Idylls for string quartet, Op. 6, No. 2, which conveniently appears on Track 15.. The dramatic opening and subsequent introduction of the theme is followed by 10 Variations. Each has a title of musical origin, and the whole piece is a delightful and cunningly humorous amusement, elegantly, wistfully or tumultuously relished by the Ostrobothnians. There are, however, some darker moments; the Funeral March, for example, has a chilling, bitter slow motion. Britten also attached to each variation a subtitle referring to Bridge's character; for example the March was his 'energy'; the Romance his 'charm'; the Aria Italiana his 'humour' in a parody of Rossini; the Bourrée his 'tradition'; the Wiener Walzer his 'enthusiasm'. Britten's copy of his final MS was presented to Bridge with the subtitles marked in, but they are omitted on his one for his publisher.

Britten's astonishing string techniques, many of them new to the first performers, are followed here by the Elgar piece, showing what a fine violinist he himself was. I first heard Elgar's Serenade For Strings in e minor at a Halle concert conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, which opened my lifelong interest in Elgar's music. The piece reaches back to his early days in 1892, the time of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony and his following death. It was at first rejected by his publisher Novello as not being of the kind of music that he required.

In contrast to the Britten, Elgar's Serenade can be described as artful simplicity. Often in its 5-strand opening Allegro, he thins the texture to one, two or three, or he thickens it with divisi (splitting one line into several). After the light and airy Allegro, the Larghetto radiates warmth, rich and fullness in its gorgeous melody. Oramo's version avoids over-emotion or over-coloured phrasing, but has elegance and youthfulness, making for a lovely performance. Oramo's affinity to Elgar makes me wonder if one day another Ostrobothnian string programme might contain Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, a brilliant piece, which was written on a holiday of Elgar on the central Wales coast, at a place where I worked on my geological PhD. Elgar, considered that the Serenade was his best piece.

Gerald Finzi (1879-1911) was a gentle and self-effacing musician who joined others of his time, including Vaughan Williams, in collecting English folk songs and picturing the rolling English countryside. Track 14, the Romance for String Orchestra, Op. 11, is a lush portrait of those landscapes and their changing weathers. Finzi has only really recently become more available both on recording and concerts in Britain, and some of his works now appear daily onClassical Music Radio programmes.

The programme is sealed with two of Finzi's using famous folk songs, 'Sally in our Alley' and 'Cherry Wipe'. His ebb-and-flow technique involves wrapping up these melodies in a whole set of Romantic and folk lushness, and waiting for the well-known tune to float out clearly in different string settings.

This may well be the best recording that I have in my Ostrobothnian collection, put down in Snellman Hall, Kokkala, Finland, a modern complex with variable spaces. Simon Fox-Gál is Producer, Engineer and Editor and has produced a reverberant space just right for the size of the strings, which each section sharply picked out. In 5.1 multichannel mode, the sound is breath-takingly realistic. The stereo sound is very good, but moving from 5.1 to stereo revealed a dryness in stereo, and a surprising reduction of reality of the instruments, showing how important the timbres of instruments depends on their acoustic setting.

A wonderful listening experience, worth every penny.

Copyright © 2016 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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