In December 2013, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra recorded the fourth album in the Chandos series of all-Gregson discs. This album features some of the most recent music by Edward Gregson, one of Britain’s most versatile and prolific composers. Orchestral music featured here includes Dream Song, the 2010 work written for the BBC Philharmonic as part of the Manchester Mahler Cycle to accompany Mahler’s Symphony No 6. Sitting alongside Dream Song is Concerto for Orchestraa large scale orchestral work originally written in 1983 and revised in 2001. Also included on the disc are two concertos; the Horn Concerto, originally written in 1971 for brass band, has recently been arranged for orchestra and is here played by Richard Watkins. Aztec Dances was originally written for either recorder or flute and piano and was reworked for flute and ensemble at the request of Wissam Boustany, the soloist on this recording. Its vivid colours and ritualistic character were inspired by a British Museum exhibition exploring Aztec culture.
