Jeremy Polmear - Vive la différence (2019)

Two delightfully different cultures. Lili Boulanger echoes Debussy with her bubbly, impressionistic D'un Matin de Printemps. Jacques Ibert's Deux Interludes pay homage to the French Baroque and to Spanish Flamenco. In his Trio of 1961, Jean-Michel Damase takes us on a kaleidoscopic tour through different aspects of French culture and creates a piece of great poignancy.

Of the British pieces here, the most 'English' is a Delius Intermezzo, conjuring up a pastoral nostalgia. Eugene Goossens' Pastoral and Harlequinade begins in similar vein, but pungent harmonies soon create a different, more unsettled world. Although written in the same year, Edward Naylor�s Trio harks back to the church music of Stanford and Parry. Gordon Jacob fought in the Great War, but in spite of this experience - or maybe because of it - wrote entertaining music like this Trio.