Peter Maxwell Davies’ Strathclyde Concertos, jointly commissioned by Strathclyde Regional Council and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1987, have given rise to a whole family of concertos for different and unusual instruments.

Strathclyde Concerto No.9 provides an opportunity for woodwind instruments to shine as soloists, the music inspired by the infinite shades of winter light reflected from the seas of Orkney. The final, tenth concerto is "a concerto for orchestra that’s as bracing as a gale on the rugged Orkney cliffs" (BBC Music Magazine), and the delightful Carolísima is filled with dances and singable tunes.

This release welcomes the complete cycle of the Strathclyde Concertos – a significant musical journey which has run parallel to his symphonies – back into circulation, which will remain as eminently collectable as his Symphonies, other Concertos and the Naxos Quartets. When it was first released in 1997 by Collins, BBC Music Magazine acclaimed this recording with its “thunderous timpani [and] whooping horns… [its] many moods… [and the] bonus of the delightful serenade, one of Max’s Gaelic medleys, Carolísima.”