It is - I absolutely loved playing that. The hours I spent practising those first four notes...

Gosh. Now, that's an interesting one, Inks. Widor's 'problem' is surely that he's only really known for that extremely famous and popular movement from the 5th organ symphony (is it?). When I was a chorister I sat and turned pages for the organist at our local church when he practised. He had a real thing for Widor and played them all. I was gobsmacked then, but I've heard very little since. FAR more fresh, piquant and, well, 'French' than Reger anyway. Would love to know your verdict eventually...

I'm just about to give it a spin now.

Who needs fresh when you can be as delicious as Reger is!  (I'm still orienting myself wrt Widor)

I've freely admitted before that the Sea Symphony is the part of the cycle I visit least. It's a work on the cusp of the composer finding his style, and as such is a little apart from its companions, although its sense of a journey towards the unknown sets a pattern that is can be clearly followed throughout virtually the whole set. Seeing it as one of his symphonies tends to make the piece seem less adventurous than comparing it with what was happening in the tradition of contemporary large-scale choral works: it was premiered only ten years after Elgar's Gerontius, but there's no trace of what might be seen of the 'stuffiness

Not sure that I'd recommend approaching the symphonies in chronological order anyway; I've tended to start friends off in the middle of the cycle and then work outwards: 5, 4, 6 first. The 'English pastoral-ness' has always been a bit of a red herring in these works; his work on folksong may inform his language, but it's not what his music's about. The London Symphony is 'a symphony by a Londoner', not a symphony about London: the fields of A Pastoral Symphony aren't British at all, but the war-ravaged fields of Flanders and the ironic juxtaposition of their desolation with the beauty of unsullied sunsets. It goes without saying, I hope, that the Sinfonia Antartica is similarly unconcerned with English topography.

One of the reasons the Previn set works so well is that he takes the idiom as read, and allows the interpretation to proceed through a revelation of detail: just like Barbirolli, he's alive to the ever-shifting changes of mood and colour: the surface for him is dynamic, rather than static (c.f. Andrew Davis's cycle) and helped in no small way by having at his command an orchestra at its peak which included many soloists in their own right.

          "Shine out fair sun" - well, metaphorically, at least.

Savouring a Archiv Produktion 2 CD set:   Mozart - Violin Concertos, Giuliano Carmignola with Orchestra Mozart/Claudio Abbado.

Five Concertos for Violin & Orchestra and Sinfonia Concertante.     Astonished to read that when he wrote the B flat major work for violin, K 207 - the work is dated 14 April 1773 - Mozart was at home in Salzburg, in the service of the newly appointed Archbishop Colloredo; and had already written two operas as well as a celebratory "festa teatrale" for the Ducal Theatre in Milan.     A few years later, Mozart was still in service in Salzburg when he wrote the Sinfonia Concertante, K 364.    A taste of magic.

Shopping around, there is an inexplicable gap between the pricing (now adjusted?) on hmv.online and play.com where I acquired the 2 CD set for £12 99.   Delivery in 3 days, too.

Walter Zimmermann, Echoing Green. I really like this CD (it's on mode, with the catalogue number 150) which features Wüstenwanderung, Geduld und Gelegenheit, Lied im Wüstenvogelton, and The Echoing Green (performers are Hermann Kretzschmar (piano), Michael Bach (cello), Dietmar Wiesner (bass flute) and Peter Rundel (violin)).

I think that this period of his output is quite lovely and have been less enamoured of the other Zimmermann mode disc I have (mode 111) which has ensemble recherche playing Schatten der Ideen, Ursache und Vorwitz, Distentio and Shadows of Cold Mountain 3 but that could have been because of my relative tiredness at the time of first listening.

Incidentally, I see that there's a future release of Lokale Musik planned on mode.
Anyone know anything about that?

Charles Koechlin The Jungle Book, symphonic poems based on the books by Rudyard Kipling. Berlin RSO, David Zinman.

Les Banderlog, yes is the best known, apart from that, i do rather like The Spring Running, Op.95.