Of the British composers to have emerged immediately before Elgar, the most significant were Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Central to Stanford’s achievement are the seven symphonies covering the greater part of his career. Although they remain well within the stylistic orbit of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, these accomplished works are marked by resourceful and often subtle orchestration. Symphony No. 2, ‘Elegiac’, completed in 1880, seems to have no overt elegiac intent, although it is prefaced by a quotation from Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Symphony No. 5 was inspired by Milton’s poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, lines from which are included in the score, and reprinted in the booklet accompanying this recording.