I’ve been seriously enjoying Arnold’s overtures as of late --- both the Arnold conducted recording on Reference Recordings and Gamba’s recording on Chandos. These are such fun works and sometimes it’s great to ‘let your hair down’ so to speak, which Walton’s Portsmouth Point Overture also has done for me when I listened to it several nights ago. What I like about Arnold and Walton especially is their ability to not take everything so seriously and I find that whole English ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude doesn’t apply to these composers, but I think it speaks of their particular generation. The lip started loosening with Elgar, Delius, Holst and then Vaughan Williams and the generations after these composers.