Scott is an established authority on British music hall, operetta, and musical theater. As a composer, he uses that knowledge to create appealing, well-crafted compositions. Like Scott’s genre of study, his music is designed to entertain. But also to enlighten. Accessibility doesn’t have to mean hackwork. Scott has carefully constructed these pieces and shown great imagination in doing so. They’re accessible, yet lead the listener in unexpected directions. I thoroughly enjoyed them, and found they rewarded repeated listening.
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The tunes here are not only catchy, but some of them may become earworms for the auditor. The spirit of the work is akin to that in some in Malcolm Arnold’s works or, in the U.S., the music of Morton Gould.
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The music here is tuneful and accessible. And it’s also well-constructed. Scott is thoroughly familiar with classical composition techniques. To me, Scott reminds me of Malcolm Arnold. Both composers take a very practical approach to composition, based on their experiences. Yes, they have complex thoughts to express. But they want to be as clear as possible in expressing them. For the listener, it means just hearing the music and judging it on its own merits. You don’t need to know what “isms” Scott’s using (none, actually). You don’t need to carefully read the liner notes to discern what the composer’s trying to say. It’s all there in the sound.
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​The music is songful and alive, shorn of all academic pretensions but buttressed by sure musical means.
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Scott has a decided knack for melody and for colourful orchestration and he’s not tied to any pesky compositional-isms. His music is therefore healthy, even when it’s inclined to be pessimistic.
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Scott is unstuffy but inquisitive, unbeholden to any dogmas and open to a wide range of influences. The writing is delightfully generous, the tunes infectious and the use of the percussion most attractive, to say nothing of the whistle-conscious writing for the bagpipes.[…] everything is sharply, warmly, wittily and communicatively generous in its impact.
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