‘The genesis of this CD is curious, and a little unusual. Between about 1980 and 2005, I was fortunate enough to record some 30 CDs, largely of neglected English music with enterprising companies, now largely defunct. Then, in 2019, a nice thing happened. Heritage Records, a company specialising in British music of the past 100 years, expressed an interest in reissuing many of these discs. This has been very gratifying but has resulted in a great number of CDs being issued in a short space of time. It would take a brave soul close to a day to listen to all this music. That is a lot of listening and appraising, so I thought a little help might be welcome. A selection of about an hour seemed a good way to give the interested listener a taster of this largely unfamiliar repertoire. Most of the pieces are short and are more likely to be overlooked.’ Peter Jacobs