This fifth album in the Toccata Classics survey of the chamber music of London-born Stephen Dodgson (1924–2013) offers a second installment of his many works for woodwinds, as well as a duo for the unusual combination of horn and harp. Much of it brings Dodgson’s sense of fun to the fore, often through rhythmic mischief or an insouciance that recalls Poulenc. It can have a spiky vivacity that suggests Janácek, too, and a hint of Baroque formality – but it also has that particularly English strain of lyricism that suggests the impermanence of beauty.
