The Melos Ensemble was formed by musicians who wanted to play chamber music scored for a larger ensemble in a combination of strings, winds and other instruments with the quality of musical rapport only regular groups can achieve.

All its members were excellent musicians who held positions in notable orchestras and appeared as soloists.

The clarinettist Gervase de Peyer, flautist Richard Adeney, viola player Cecil Aronowitz and cellist Terence Weil were the founding members.

Planned as a group of twelve players – string quintet, wind quintet with piano and harp – this could be expanded by other players to perform an enormous range of works from Mozart through the classics and romantics of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms to Bartók, Janácek, Nielsen, Poulenc and Khatchaturian. They also gave first performances and then recorded works by four then young British composers: Richard Rodney Bennett, Harrison Birtwistle, Gordon Crosse and Peter Maxwell Davies.

The principal musicians who joined the initial four were the violinists Emanuel Hurwitz and Ivor McMahon, double bass player Adrian Beers, oboist Peter Graeme, horn player Neil Sanders, bassoonist William Waterhouse, pianist Lamar Crowson and harpist Osian Ellis.

Many of the recordings are classics of the Gramophone and have been rarely out of the catalogue. Here is a set bringing together all their recordings made during those fifteen halcyon years of glorious music-making.

Artists

Gervase de Peyer (clarinet), Emanuel Hurwitz (violin), Ivor McMahon (violin), Cecil Aronowitz (viola), Terence Weil (cello), Lamar Crowson (piano), Peter Graeme (oboe)

Neil Sanders (horn), William Waterhouse (bassoon), James Buck (horn), Adrian Beers (double bass), Kenneth Sillito (violin), Iona Brown (violin), Kenneth Essex (viola), Keith Harvey (cello), Sarah Barrington (oboe), · Keith Puddy (clarinet), Edgar Williams (bassoon)

Richard Adeney (flute), Peter Graeme (oboe & cor anglais), Richard Adeney (flute/piccolo), Stephen Trier (bass-clarinet)

Osian Ellis (harp)

William Bennett (flute), Mary Thomas (soprano), Rosemary Phillips (contralto), Philip Jones (trumpet), Arthur Wilson (trombone), Christopher Hyde-Smith (flute), Anthony Jennings (bass-clarinet), David Mason (trumpet), Alfred Flaszinski (trombone), Tristan Fry (percussion), Jack Lees (percussion), Manoug Parikian (violin), Hilary Wilson (harp), James Blades (percussion), Stephen Whittaker (percussion), Eli Goren (violin), · Terence Weil (cello)

Melos Ensemble, Sir Edward Downes, John Carewe