Bowerman: Whereon Wild Thyme Blows Champs Hill Records: CHRCD033 A challenging compilation disc because of the determined rejection of any "modern" styles or -isms from the last century or so by David W Bowerman, a well known English patron of the arts. Well crafted, and nicely performed, but... I quite liked the Franck transcription for string quartet, persausively justified by Malcolm MacDonald & Bowerman as "less monotonous than on the organ"; Gerontius Revisited using themes from the oratorio, and a Fantasy on a Fugue by the young Elgar. A curiosity which will please some diehard traditionalists, but maybe not more adventurous collectors. Peter Grahame Woolf
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