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It is generally accepted that many composers of the British musical renaissance were strongly stimulated and influenced by nature, but questions such as how and why this influence actually worked, how it manifests itself in the music, how variously composers perceived and reacted to nature, and how ‘nature’ might be defined in the first place (particularly as expressed in a work of art) seem less clear. Although discussions of nature's influence on art have been attempted for centuries, only recently have commentators begun analyzing the exact function of nature in its various guises in the inspiration, creation and shaping of music. Concepts of nature itself differ widely for both composers and musicologists; while ‘nature’ (as a social, cultural or personal construct) in early 20th-century British music tended to be rural, idealized and rustic, it may more generally be understood as the material world in its entirety. Thus Vaughan Williams's London Symphony is just as valid ‘nature music’ as the Sea and Pastoral Symphonies that came before and after.

Over a period of almost four decades, the composer E.J. Moeran took a great interest in traditional song. Although he made settings of songs, and his music was influenced by them, he deeply respected the tradition for its own sake, and greatly admired the skill of performers such as Harry Cox. His extant collection of traditional songs is not large - fewer than seventy items - but it is of great interest, and his contribution in this field has been unfairly neglected. A check-list of songs and singers is appended.

Assignment / 9.05am, 12.05pm, 3.05pm, 8.05pm & 1.05am, World Service There's a Northern theme this week as stand-in presenter Penny Smith considers the legacy of artist L S Lowry, the Northern Art Prize and 50 years of 'Coronation Street'.

There's a Northern theme this week as stand-in presenter Penny Smith considers the legacy of artist L S Lowry, the Northern Art Prize and 50 years of 'Coronation Street'.

Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932), whose contributions to landscape design made her one of the most important figures associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, spent her career promoting a creative vision closely aligned with the values of soft pastoralism. She stressed the importance of planting native flora in gardens, building with local stone and wood, and decorating with artisan crafts—in part because she found inexpensive, mass-produced goods shoddy and ugly, but mostly because she felt that using local resources strengthened individuals’ ties with their communities and could actually make people happier as a result. In her book Old West

One of the advantages of CDs is that they can tickle the palate with music that one has seldom heard in the concert hall. Whether the Rossini pieces on Decca's new release, entitled Rossini Discoveries (470 298-2, pounds 12.99), will ever become firm repertoire items remains to be seen, but the music itself is a pure joy. These discoveries are all things that the writer of the booklet likens to the contents of a curio cabinet. There are overtures to this and that, stirring patriotic hymns, a fanfare for four horns, and ballet divertissements that were dropped from the operas they were written for. Riccardo Chailly conducts the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in performances that lift the spirits with their zest. Listening to the overture that Rossini recast for the Paris version of his opera Mose in Egitto (retitled Moise et Pharaon for France), it is easy to understand why Verdi was influenced by it when he wrote the opening of his own Nabucco.

\"The concerto is a fabulous piece,\" says [Tasmin Little]. \"It's very liquid, very Irish and pastoral and the middle movement is the whizz-bang.\" It is surely no coincidence that the piece should be chosen for the last Proms season of departing director and Radio 3 controller Roger Wright, a tireless advocate of British music. The Walton Violin Concerto flowed into the gap in British music created by the death within a few months of each other in 1934 of the British composers-in-chief at that time: Elgar, Delius and Holst. \"It is one of the greatest violin concertos ever written,\" says Little. \"It's still a surprise to me that it's never achieved the level of popularity of, say, the Elgar. Even the Britten wasn't played much until about 10 years ago. Now it, and the Elgar, are played abroad too. But the Walton is 'the poor cousin'. I can't put my finger on why: it has all the ingredients - lyricism, tunes, panache, virtuosity, both in the violin and orchestral writing.\" \"It's difficult, but not intrinsically more so that the Britten or Elgar. It requires a finesse of technique on the part of the conductor, and a real sense of leadership. The second movement is at the end of the scale for management abilities.\" This middle movement - \"the one you spend most rehearsal time on,\" she says - is distinguished by its accompanied cadenzas, a real challenge, the violinist's freewheeling solo explorations also grounded by orchestral interjections.\"In the second movement you have to feel as though you are arching your eyebrow and putting your hand on your hip - it has to be tigerish. You can see that [Jascha Heifetz] has gone to Walton at one point and said: \"Give me something faster - I want to show off here.\"

Andrew Clements reviews the new classical CD release \"Moeran: String Quartests Nos 1 & 2; Fantasy Quartet; Piano Trio,\" featuring Nicholas Daniel.

Precisely the same technical and expressive qualities that make [E. J. Moeran]'s music so pleasant are found in two little-known American works of the late 19th century, Horatio Parker's symphonic poem ''A Northern Ballad'' (1899) and George Chadwick's Second Symphony (1886) (New World NW-339-2, all three configurations). The common perception that serious American music became worthy of attention only after World War I, with the the return from France of Nadia Boulanger's distinguished gaggle of American students, is erroneous. Yet, because of his personal connection with the Second Viennese School, his music is often bracketed for comparison with that of [Arnold Schoenberg]. The program notes of an excellent performance of his three-movement symphonic poem ''Die Seejungfrau'' by Riccardo Chailly and the Berlin Radio Orchestra (London 417 450-2, all three configurations) do just that, pointing out that his son-in-law's tone poem ''Pelleas und Melisane,'' premiered on the same program in 1905, was better received. The Swiss-born Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was never a fashionable composer, but nonetheless his ''Schelomo'' (1916), a rhapsody for cello and orchestra, has become a repertory staple. This uninhibitedly emotional outpouring seems equally inspired by the music of Strauss's ''Salome'' and the biblical ''Song of Songs.''