Style & enjoyment: John Wilson & Sinfonia of London bring Cheltenham Music Festival to a close with a light music programme culminating in Eric Coates’s rarity Cinderella

John Wilson & Sinfonia of London at Cheltenham Town Hall, Cheltenham Music Festival (Photo: Still Moving Media for Cheltenham Festivals)

Sullivan, Delius, Vaughan Williams, Richard Rodney Bennett, Walton, Eric Coates, Elgar, Haydn Wood, Robert Farnon, Vivian Ellis; Sinfonia of London, John Wilson; Cheltenham Music Festival at Cheltenham Town Hall
Reviewed 11 July 2026

Eric Coates rarely performed Cinderella Phantasy was the climax of a delightful summer programme benefitting from the way John Wilson and the orchestra combined technique with style and enjoyment

Last year, Cheltenham Music Festival celebrated its 80th anniversary, bringing the festival to a close with a concert where Gergely Madaras and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales explored music performed at the first festival and music commissioned by the festival, with Elgar, Arnold and Britten [see my review]. For the final concert of this year’s festival on Saturday 11 July 2026 at Cheltenham Town Hall, John Wilson conducted his Sinfonia of London. If the 2025 concert was an exploration of British music in the 20th century, the John Wilson and his orchestra seemed to offer an alternative view, taking us from Sullivan and Elgar, through Delius’s The walk to the Paradise Garden, Vaughan Williams’s Lark Ascending (with Charlie Lovell-Jones), and Walton, to Richard Rodney Bennett, Robert Farnon, Haydn Wood, Vivian Ellis and Eric Coates ending with a rare performance of Coates’s tone poem Cinderella.

We began with Sir Arthur Sullivan’s overture to The Yeoman of the Guard, one of the few Savoy Opera overtures that Sullivan actually wrote. This is music that benefits from being played by a fine orchestra. Here Sullivan’s orchestration sparkled, everything crisp and clear: light strings, classy wind, fine-toned brass and vivid excitement.

In his spoken introduction to the concert John Wilson said for him the best definition of light music was that ‘the tune is more important than what you do with it’. What followed in the first half was less light music than composers in more approachable mode. 

In its original context in Delius’s opera A Village Romeo and Juliet, where it forms an interlude whilst the protagonists walk to the pub before committing suicide, Delius’s The walk to the Paradise Garden is hardly light. You wonder if it would have done so well as an independent piece if the pub name had been Crown & Anchor rather than Paradise Garden!

John Wilson took an admirably clear-sighted view of the work, all clarity and focus, clear lines, sophisticated phrasing and admirable lack of romantic gloss. All beginning with barely there strings and a fine oboe solo.

Richard Rodney Bennett wrote Summer Music for flute and piano in 1982, an example of his more approachable, tonal style and he later orchestrated the work. In three short movements, there was a distinct neo-classical feel to the piece. First a flute-led, lightly jaunty movement, delightfully sophisticated with a real tune. Then a slower, more blues-inflected movement that veered into big romantic film music territory, and finally a jaunty movement with a distinct gleam in its eye.

Charlie Lovell-Jones, the orchestra’s leader, took the spotlight in Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. In his opening cadenza, Lovell-Jones made the violin flourishes quite swift, his tone fine-grained, focused and singing. It became clear that neither Lovell-Jones nor Wilson viewed the piece with rose-coloured spectacles and the performance was all the better for this sense of clarity and intimacy. The faster, folk-inspired section was engaging with controlled excitement. Then the orchestra evaporated to barely there for Lovell-Jones’s final, off-stage solo. Pure magic.

The first half ended with William Walton in film music mode: his Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, sophisticated music originally written to accompany a film about the first spitfires! The prelude was all discipline and excitement alongside tonal beauty and terrific brass playing. There was a sense of vivid glamour and crisp rhythms in the fugue, with a magical, lyrical middle section.

We began the second half with Eric Coates’s well known march, Calling All Workers. The work was premiered at Cheltenham Town Hall by the BBC Theatre Orchestra (the predecessor of the BBC Concert Orchestra) in 1940. Like a lot of British light music of the 20th century, the work is intimately linked to the medium of radio. There results here were exciting with vivid, controlled rhythms.

Elgar wrote Chanson de Matin and Chanson de Nuit around the time he was working on Enigma Variations. These are no early pot-boilers. Originally written for violin and piano, they were deliberately designed to be approachable and saleable, sophisticated salon music that would be popular with amateurs. Sinfonia of London gave Chanson de Matin with style and love whilst Chanson de Nuit had surprising depth and became rather touching.

Haydn Wood was a contemporary of Eric Coates. His London Landmarks suite depicts three London scenes, honing in on a contemporary vogue (Coates wrote a similar suite). Here we heard The Horseguards in Whitehall, a delightful piece where the performance captured the work’s spirit along with the players sense of enjoyment.

Canadian-born Robert Farnon became a later, interestingly transatlantic thread in 20th century British light music. His Lake of the Woods is an early work, inspired by his native Canadian landscape. Misty harmonies paid homage to 20th century music developments yet created some lovely aural effects. High atmospheric with perhaps a touch of Delius.

Vivian Ellis is better known for his musicals but his train-inspired piece Coronation Scot (actually written on the less euphonious Cornish Riviera Express) became well-known when used at the signature tune for the BBC Radio series, Paul Temple. Full of train effects, it was delightful, light yet imaginative.

Eric Coates had a distinguished career as a viola player with the Queens Hall Orchestra, working with such luminaries as Richard Strauss, Debussy and Beecham. His Cinderella Phantasy was the third of his fairy-tale inspired tone poems, with Coates using his sophisticated orchestration skills to present a narrative in every way a match for Strauss’s storytelling in works like Don Juan or Don Quixote (in which Coates performed the viola solos with Pablo Casals as solo cello).

Wilson gave us a highly amusing yet very informative potted summary of the work, just to ensure maximum narrative clarity. Coates use of the orchestra is delightful, and he clearly relished this style of tonal story telling, plus a few bangers when it came to tunes. The first waltz at the ball was delightful and then when the Prince and Cinderella dance we had a lovely slow waltz that eventually got faster and faster until….!

There were hints of melodrama, touches of schmaltz and lots of fine detail. This might be light music, but it is technically demanding, and the performance benefitted from the way the orchestra combined technique with style and enjoyment. The final section became almost a pot-pourri of earlier themes, leading to a vivid end.