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Classic Widows features four extraordinary women who are championing the music of their late composer-husbands: Susana Walton, globetrotting widow of William Walton; Bertha Stevens, whose husband, a contemporary of Walton's, died in relative obscurity; Xenia Frankel, who was left £50,000 in debt on the death of her husband Benjamin; and Humphrey Searle's widow. The programme features specially chosen selections from all the composers' works, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Hickox.

Born at Oxford, where he was later to become a university classics scholar before attending the Royal College of Music, Searle studied with Anton von Webern in Vienna in 1937-'38.

[Franz Liszt] also invented the modern piano recital, says [Humphrey Searle]. This afternoon at 3 in Symphony Hall, it's Andre Watts' heavy duty to show what that means with his all-Liszt program. Then its the turn of Earl Wild. He will give three Liszt programs in Sanders Theater, Cambridge, for the Peabody-Mason Music Foundation:\"The Poet\" on April 27; \"The Transcriber\" on May 4; and \"The Virtuoso\" on May 11. Other aspects of the master will be explored later this season during the International Liszt Festival on April 3-6 at Brandeis University. Organized by Liszt scholar Allan R. Keiler (who discovered Liszt's conducting scores that were believed lost in a 1905 fire in Weimar), the festival includes concerts, recitals, lectures and an exhibition of Liszt manuscripts and memorabilia. The BSO returns on March 3. During its absence, Pierre Boulez and his Ensemble Intercontemporain will give a week of concerts in Symphony Hall.Boulez' \"Repons\" will be heard on Feb. 24 and 25. The regular BSO subscription program for Feb. 27-28 and March 1 lists Donatoni's \"Tema,\" Carter's \"Penthode,\" Varese's Octandre, Hoeller's \"Resonance\"and Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1.

He was effectively resident organist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and notched up 29 Last Nights of the Proms; he gave chamber music concerts with the oboist Janet Craxton, the tenor Peter Pears and many others. As a schoolboy, I remember his name coming up regularly on the Third Programme. Memorable performances included the Bach B minor Mass under Klemperer, Handel's Messiah under Malcolm Sargent and the Mozart Requiem under Colin Davis, the last still available on CD.

The 12-tone music he heard formed the springboard for his own works, including chamber compositions, five symphonies and three works for the stage, including ''Hamlet'' and a setting...

British light music is most often associated with BBC radio programs from the 1930s onwards, and [Eric Coates] (1886-1957) contributed more than most. His marches and serenades were frequently used as BBC signature tunes, most famously for Desert Island Discs, which still uses its original tune today, after 50 years (and is unthinkable without it). That piece, \"Sleepy Lagoon,\" is included on this disk along with two of Coates' suites of short orchestral pieces,: \"The Four Ways Suite\" (1927) and the \"Springtime Suite\" (1937). Also on the disk are two marches in the same vein as Coates' famous \"Dambusters March\" (not included here), and two concert dances. And there is the \"Saxo Rhapsody,\" a ten-minute concerto in one movement, which Michael Ponder in the notes claims as \"one of the major saxophone pieces from the earlier part of this century,\" alongside Debussy's Rhapsody.

Reviews an electronic document (http://www.edu.coventry.ac.uk/musik/searle/titlepg.htm), the annotated autobiography of composer Humphrey Searle. Reports the site combines first-rate scholarship with the interactive capabilities of the World Wide Web, offering an unprecedented opportunity to learn about Searle's life and career.

A two-CD set of Humphrey Searle's complete symphonies with two incidental pieces, performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Alun Francis, is reviewed (cpo, 2 CDs).