Martin Owen, BBC Philharmonic and Rumon Gamba - Gipps: Orchestral Works Vol. 3 (2025) [Hi-Res]

For this third instalment in his survey of orchestral works by Ruth Gipps, Rumon Gamba, conducting the BBC Philharmonic, is joined by the horn soloist Martin Owen. The album opens with Gipps’s Coronation Procession. The piece depicts the journey of the Crown(s), perhaps as observed from the Royal Coach, culminating in the entry to Westminster Abbey. Written in January 1953, the piece was not used at the coronation, and instead first performed in September 1954 in Melbourne, Australia. Ambarvalia is a memorial tribute of 1988 by Gipps to the composer and colleague Adrian Cruft, who had died in February 1987. Gipps wrote the Horn Concerto in 1968 for her son, Lance Baker. The piece was later championed by Frank Lloyd, who gave a BBC broadcast in 1982. Here the virtuoso Martin Owen brings the work vividly to life. The Lake District was the inspiration for the ‘Impression’ Cringlemire Garden, a pastoral miniature for string orchestra. Dated September 1942, the First Symphony is a direct reflection of the horrors of war. The work demonstrates Gipps’s personal voice, and features some wonderful writing for winds.