If Marco Polo ever does get around to recording (a good performance of)
Brian's symphony # 28, I don't think there'll be any doubt at all that
the fellow was at home in the percussion section.  Stokowski's premiere
recording (the Aries LP was a transcription, as with many of the others in
the series, of recordings made for BBC, iirc) if anything overemphasized
(and, I am given to understand, simply misplayed, in the direction of- too
loudly!) the percussion in the finale- nice effect, on the one hand, but it
would be nice to hear that movement as originally intended, on the other.

It does occur to me though, that if you can find the EMI CD with sym.  31
as conducted by Charles Mackerras (it is, I think, sometimes available,)
that's both one of the finest recordings I've heard of Brian's music
commercially available, and the CD as a whole (sym.  7, sym.  31, overture
"Tinker's Wedding") offers some examples of fine percussion writing as
well.  It should make the point without waiting for an as-yet-unavailable
CD.  (Though what's this next CD in the Brian cycle supposed to be again?
Anyway...) (The whole Mackerras CD's my favorite recording of Brian's
music, but is only intermittently in stores.  Mackerras premiered the 31st,
which while not my introduction to Brian's music was certainly the work
that had me coming back to it.)

-Eric Schissel