Well the Arnall Project from a couple years back has seen some more light.
The origional article is posted at:
http://www.audaud.com/article.php?ArticleID=4210~
RICHARD ARNELL: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 - MusicaNova Orchestra/Warren Cohen - Con Brio Recordings
Arnell, who is now 90, is considered one of Britain's most important living composers.
Published on May 17, 2008
RICHARD ARNELL: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 - MusicaNova Orchestra/Warren Cohen - Con Brio Recordings CBR27452, 64:50 [www.conbriorecordings.com]*****:Arnell, who is now 90, is considered one of Britain's most important living composers. (He's not to be confused with the composer of the Warsaw Concerto - Richard Addinsell.) He studied composition with John Ireland and Vaughan Williams chaired the panel that awarded him a composition prize in 1938. Arnell's opera includes six symphonies, six string quartets, ballets and many film scores. He has been an educator and mentor to younger composers and musicians. He lived in New York from 1939 to 1947 and during WWII he was
Music Consultant for the BBC's North American Service. Beecham once called him "one of the best orchestrators since Berlioz." Surprisingly, this is the second recent recording of Arnell's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (the other is on the Dutton label).
This CD is a fine independent project coming out a collaboration between a small California record label and the founder and conductor of the MusicaNova Orchestra of Scottsdale, AZ. Warren Cohen founded the orchestra in 2003 to specialize in the
performance new and unjustly neglected repertory of exceptional quality. They have premiered for American audiences compositions of Franz Schreker, Hans Gal, Boris Tchaikovsky and others. Maestro Cohen encountered Arnell's music during a visit to England in the early 90s, and has since been in the vanguard of the effort to perform the works of this important figure in British music.
Arnell himself describes his Fourth as "the most condensed, the most intense, and perhaps the most personal" of his symphonies. Tympani launch both the first and third movements, and the second movement's theme is described as "nostalgic." Arnell posited a comparison of looking the wrong way into a telescope in the structure of the Fourth - each movement getting shorter and more concentrated than the last. All three movements of the Fifth Symphony are marked as various Andantes. The center movement is a lively scherzo, and the work has a joyful, triumphant conclusion. Above all, these are tonal, accessible and mostly diatonic works which are a fine addition to the symphonic repertory and should be heard. Sonics on the recording are excellent, and the MusicaNova Orchestra plays like a highly professional aggregation.
- John Sunier
