Which raises the question - why are Arnold's symphonies so unknown in the concert hall?
I am flummoxed, they are well structured, great tunes, brilliant orchestration, innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
If anyone is coming to them for the first time, try 2 and 5 then move to 4.There are no duds although I do find 7 a bit challenging. I also adore 9,but do leave it till last, it is not the easiest listen, the last movement at 21 minutes or so needs full concentration but well worth it.
DO TRY THEM!
Concert Managers - include them in your next season, you will be amazed at the audience reaction.
As an aside if you are feeling a bit down (fashionable now!) try Arnold's St Trinian's music - I guarantee it will raise a smile.

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Whilst I agree with your reviewer’s enthusiasm for Malcolm Arnold’s own recording of his Fourth Symphony, it was perhaps remiss him of him not to say a little more about the timings. He comments on the length of the first and third movements and mentions comparative performances but neglects to say that Andrew Penny dispatches the first movement in 13’04 and Richard Hickox in 13’59 as opposed to Arnold’s 18’46. The differences in the slow movement and finale are almost as great and it really does change the character of the music.
Arnold seemed to favour much slower tempi in his later recordings, taking, for example, 39’08 minutes for Symphony No.1 compared to Hickpx (30’18) and Penny (28’27); the Reference Recordings disc of overtures shows much the same sort of disparity with Arnold himself taking 10'49 for 'Beckus the Dandipratt’ in 1991 as opposed to 7’23 in 1955. One cannot help but wonder why - was it just age and related to his well-known problems (the account of his behaviour during the recording sessions for the First Symphony is hair-raising!) or did he really come to see the music in a different light?
One other point about the review: Colin Clarke wonders whether ‘ the marking of the finale as "Con fuoco" is either deliberate misnomer or comes from Arnold’s misguided streak’ but the faster tempi in other recordings do more to justify it, and in any case it’s only one of several markings being followed by Alla marcia, Maestoso and Allegro molto - though admittedly there is also at one stage a return to Tempo primo.
I’m not sure I’d always want to hear the symphony in the elderly Arnold’s way but equally, it’s fascinating and I have to agree that it is indeed ‘a pinnacle of the Lyrita catalogue’.