Recording of the Week, John Wilson conducts orchestral works by American composer Kenneth Fuchs

Given John Wilson's knack for digging up and championing repertoire that could be said to sit at the more obscure and under-recorded end of the spectrum, in retrospect I maybe should not have been at all surprised to learn that, when he mentioned once in an interview that he had recently conducted an album of American music, it was not going to include the usual suspects of Copland, Gershwin, Barber, Ives etc, but instead would be dedicated to the music of Kenneth Fuchs.

Despite being a Grammy Award-winning composer and the focus of several volumes in Naxos's American Classics series, I dare say Fuchs is not so well-known outside the US, and indeed I must hold my hand up and add myself to the list of those who were not familiar with his output. I am pleased to have had this oversight corrected, however, thanks to Wilson's latest album with Sinfonia of London, which features a total of four world premiere recordings. Even more on-brand for John Wilson, he is actually directly responsible for the existence of the work entitled Cloud Slant: although Fuchs had conceived of and made some sketches of the work back in the 1960s, it was only Wilson's initial planning of this very album in 2019 that provided the impetus for Fuchs to bring the work to fruition.

Described as a 'virtuoso orchestral concerto', this three-movement work was inspired by a triptych of canvasses by the American abstract expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler (the eponymous one of which is featured on the cover). Stylistically, Fuchs's music sits very much in the late-twentieth-century American idiom, frequently reminding me of composers such as Alan Hovhaness, David Diamond, Paul Moravec and others, and yet I was also struck by how often this piece ventured beyond its native shores and, whether intentionally or not, seemed to flirt with allusions to the music of Benjamin Britten, not least the mercurial flashes of 'Dawn' from the Four Sea Interludes.

Constantly alive with movement and intricate invention, and full of dazzling flourishes and imaginative touches of orchestration, it suits Sinfonia of London perfectly. Their ability to capture every last ounce of nuance and changing mood, from the opening washes of swirling woodwind in the first movement, 'Blue Fall', to the soaring, floating majesty of the horns and strings in the second movement, 'Flood', is unfailingly remarkable.

As exemplified by so many of their previous albums, it is arguably the richness and depth of the strings especially that gives Sinfonia of London its distinctive sound, and they are afforded another chance to shine in the work for string orchestra alone, Pacific Visions. Named after a wing of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, it is a vibrant, dynamic work that juxtaposes energetic passages with more lyrical, contemplative sections that showcase the range and versatility of the strings.

Quiet in the Land began life in 2003 as a chamber work for mixed quintet (and has been recorded in that instrumentation), and in 2017 was expanded by Fuchs to the version for full orchestra heard here. Of all the works presented, this one is perhaps the most Copland-esque, appropriately enough given that it is intended to convey the spirit of the Midwest prairies. Already effective in its original version, its impact is enhanced in the orchestral arrangement, with the expanded palette enabling the work's more aggressive aspects to come across even more movingly, particularly a central section for threatening timpani and brass which contrasts the 'Quiet Land' with the more 'unquiet' landscape of the Iraq War.

This is billed as Volume One, and I believe that a second instalment might well be on the way later in the year: on the basis of this album I am looking forward very much to continuing this journey with the orchestra and exploring Fuchs's music further.