Kevin Mallon and his Toronto-based period instrument group again prove themselves talented performers of 18th Century music. The recording and notes are both first class.

Samuel Arnold's Op 8 Overtures are in fact three-movement symphonies, and in truth pretty light fare, their standardised galant clichés presenting the amiable countenance of a JC Bach or an early Mozart without capturing their more refined features or finding their kind of momentum.
Of more interest is the stage music. Like many a theatre man, he is not afraid to make the odd pragmatic borrowing, and in his incidental music to Macbeth he bypasses the play's supernatural element and emphasises its Scottishness by importing several authentic folk tunes, each given a pleasingly sensitive orchestral arrangement. His own original music includes a rattling military march and an everso- slightly Scottish-sounding Minuet for the Banquet scene. In the overture to Polly, sequel to The Beggar's Opera, Arnold again shows his theatrical nous by conjuring up the past in a medley of some of the earlier work's well known tunes. Under Kevin Mallon the modern instruments of Toronto Camerata play with style, accuracy and commitment.

Samuel Arnold was a leading figure on the London musical scene in the late-18th-century. …in his incidental music to Macbeth he… emphasises its Scottishness by importing several authentic folk tunes, each given a pleasingly sensitive orchestral arrangement. His own original music include a rattling military march and an ever-so-slightly Scottish-sounding Minuet for the Banquet scene. Under Kevin Mallon the modern instruments of Toronto Camerata play with style, accuracy and commitment.