Our critics choose the classical records of the month

DELIUS Cello Concerto, HOLST Invocation, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes
Julian Lloyd Webber/Philharmonia/Handley RCA RS 9010 £5.60

THE Cello Concerto was the last of Delius's concertos and his own favourite. First performed sixty years ago, it is a rarity in this concert-room, which makes this, only it's second recording, doubly desirabe. Julian Lloyd Webber threads the golden solo line 'con amore' through one of Delius's loveliest works, tinged with the gentle melancholy of the autumnal harmonies that were his alone. First recordings of both the Holst and Vaughan Williams pieces, and superbly vivid sound, make an important accession to the recorded literature of the cello.
Felix Aprahamian