Brabbins and his Scottish forces pounce on every glinting detail and quirk…Roderick Williams squeezes every lyrical drop from the sometimes arid vocal line, though it's the orchestral details that grab the ear as the poet lies in his midsummer wood, contemplating bees, brier roses, and old loves that used to burn like 'fierce red kings'. Fruity stuff.

This disc is something special. It features some of Brian's most attractive scores…and some of the best playing any Brian works have received, as well as vibrantly clear sound quality…[the] performances are beautifully balanced and idiomatic. Brabbins, who has now become Brian's foremost living exponent, directs with complete understanding of the idiom and the orchestra responds with elan. Roderick Williams is an ideal soloist in 'Wine of Summer', his superbly nuanced rendering of Brian's notes and Lord Alfred Douglas's verses fully the equal of Brian Rayner Cook's pioneering interpretations last century