Stephen Pruslin’s note on St Thomas Wake…is very nearly a model of its kind, providing background information, explanation and description in straightforward language. The work itself is vintage Maxwell Davies, with a period band—dressed in boaters and striped blazers—sitting beside the symphony orchestra, its series of superbly adept pastiche foxtrots on which the orchestra comments and eventually overwhelms, and the whole a kind of ironic evocation of the composer’s childhood memories of the Second World War, plus much else besides. Though frequently comic, it is, in fact, a deeply serious work, heavily disguised.

The performance of the symphony by the BBC Philharmonic under the composer’s direction is a fine one.

Naxos, with their enormous catalogue of original recordings, are also putting us in their debt by reissuing performances such as these that have not seen the light of day for some time, often from defunct labels. In this case we have a deeply serious, big, four-movement symphony that does not give much away on a first hearing but enormously repays repeated listening and detailed study. It is coupled with a much more immediately attractive, shorter work that conceals its serious nature behind a frequently hilarious façade. © 2012 MusicWeb International Read complete review