Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder Hallé CD HLL 7528***

As the title suggests, this is a disc concerned with musical nature-painting. The largest work is Arnold Bax's Swinburne- inspired Spring Fire(1913), in which the composer set out to depict "the first uprush and impulse of Spring in the woods". Delius's The March of Spring(from his North Country Sketches, 1913-14) has not dissimilar concerns, and was once titled Spring's Awakening. Both pieces are cast in gorgeous orchestral garb, but neither composer's language has quite the harmonic traction or rhythmic point to create a real sense of life force. Frank Bridge's 1927 rhapsody Enter Springmoves with greater eagerness and vigour, and brings a rather more modern flavour to English pastoralism. The performances under Mark Elder are ardent, and the disc also includes Delius's early Idylle de Printempsof 1899, which had to wait until 1995 for a first performance. See halle.co.uk