Ireland: Music for String Orchestra review – bucolic charm

Raphael Wallfisch (cello), Orchestra of the Swan/Curtis
(Naxos)Evocations of rolling English landscape are ever-present in the music of John Ireland (1879-1962), whether implicit, as in A Downland Suite, or implied, as in the brooding Cello Sonata in G minor, played here with arresting vigour by Raphael Wallfisch in an arrangement for strings by Matthew Forbes. Wallfisch also finds grace in several tuneful miniatures, notably a Cavatina from 1904. David Curtis and the Orchestra of the Swan make