CD REVIEW – ROBERT DOCKER
Three Contrasts
William Davies, piano - David Presley, oboe
RTÉ Concert Orchestra - Barry Knight
Naxos 8.574322 [78:38]

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It will be good if Volume 7 in the Naxos 'British Light Music' reissue series featuring Robert Docker (1918-92) introduces people to one of the best light music arrangers and composers, whose works are so rarely heard these days.

I remember him for the long running BBC Radio 2 'Friday Night is Music Night', where he worked with and orchestrated for the great Sidney Torch and the BBC Concert Orchestra. He also wrote for the cinema, including part of the score for 'Chariots of Fire'. He was first noticed as a recital accompanist for operatic singers and later played with the London Studio Players as well as partnering fellow pianists Edward Rubach, William Davies and Gordon Langford.

It is Davies who is the spirited soloist here on a world premiere recording of what is probably Docker's best-known work, Legend, regularly played on the wireless back in the day. An almost equally popular piece was Tabarinage ('Buffoonery'), written in the form of a can-can and an example of his humorous side.

Two longer works among the 15 tracks on a very generously timed album are 'Pastiche Variations for Piano and Orchestra', also featuring Davies, which is based on the traditional French song Frère Jacques, and 'Three Contrasts for Oboe and Strings' with David Presley the soloist.

Docker's ability as an arranger is further demonstrated in The Spirit of Cambria, Fairy Dance Reel and Blue Ribbons with their traditional tunes from Wales, Ireland and England respectively.

The Irish orchestra play with panache under the baton of Barry Knight, a man who knew his way around the world of light music and also provides the booklet notes. The sound recording, made at Dublin University in 1995, was produced and engineered by the ever-excellent Brian Culverhouse (d.2021).

This release is recommended as another reminder of the golden days of our kind of music.

© Peter Burt 2022