Scottish Chamber Orchestra - 40th Anniversary Edition - The Telegraph

From Mozart to Maxwell Davies, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has a healthy, high-grade history of recording. Established in 1974, it is one of the brightest strands in the fabric of British musical life, and its 40th anniversary is being marked on this CD with three of its recent maestros.

Robin Ticciati is the SCO's current principal conductor, the post that the American Joseph Swensen held from 1996 until 2005. Sir Charles Mackerras was Conductor Laureate until his death in 2010. Two of the works on this disc are familiar from previous SCO releases, so some collectors might already have them.

However, for those who might be new to Mackerras's way with Mozart's 'Jupiter' Symphony (from 2007), his interpretation is well worth catching for its blend of grandeur and lucidity, rhythmic energy and shrewd adoption of crisp period performance practices. Swensen is adept at etching in the drama of the shifting lights and shades of Sibelius's second suite from 'The Tempest' (2003), and Ticciati, in a new recording of Wagner's 'Siegfried Idyll', draws on the orchestra's golden sheen and mellifluousness to give a performance of luminous beauty. Let's hope there will be plenty more where this came from.