John McCabe (1939–2013) maintained a considerable presence on the British music scene as a composer, pianist, and writer on music, but since his death his own music has had few recordings. It is therefore a pleasure to welcome the arrival of this new release of his previously unrecorded Cello Concerto and Third Symphony. An earlier recording of his Symphony No. 2, made in 1973 with the City of Birmingham SO under Louis Frémaux, was long unavailable. \

According to the composer, his Second Symphony was inspired by Sam Peckinpaw’s 1969 Western, The Wild Bunch, but the music is not as graphic as the movie. Any violence in McCabe’s symphony is nascent, with skittering woodwinds and ominous brass chords providing a constant ‘on the edge’ sensation. (Even more so in Frémaux’s tense performance.) Over the symphony’s Bartókian five-movement arc, jittery nervous passages alternate with quiet brooding, which is how the piece ends. McCabe’s colourful orchestral palette is a notable feature. 

That also applies to the ruminative Cello Concerto of 2007. Listen to the delicate use of the vibraphone in the central Adagio