St Andrews Chamber Orchestra * Cedric Thorpe Davie: Orchestral Music Vol. 1 [New CD]

For the middle decades of the twentieth century Cedric Thorpe Davie (1913-83) was a mainstay of musical life in Britain - and in Scotland in particular - as an administrator, academic, choral director and, especially, composer. His many film scores brought him a wide audience, but the orchestral works he wrote for the concert hall are as good as unknown. The five works heard here, all in their first recordings, reveal craftsmanship of a high order and a natural melodic gift, in a style anchored in the soundworlds of Sibelius and Vaughan Williams - both of whom he knew personally - combined with a Scottish accent that gives this music a unique personal voice.