Anthony Collins gained his early orchestral experience in the ranks of the violas. He joined the Hastings Municipal Orchestra aged seventeen. From Hastings Collins went to serve in the British Army during the 1914-18 War. In 1920 he graduated to the Royal College of Music in London to study violin with Serge Rivarde and composition with Gustav Holst. Collins soon became not only leader of the London Symphony Orchestra violas but a director of this self governing orchestra during a period of turmoil for the London orchestras. In 1934 Muir Mathieson invited Arthur Bliss to compose for Alexander Korda's film of H.G. Wells' Things to Come. Bliss wrote a score for full orchestra and Mathieson engaged the London Symphony Orchestra to record it. The demands of the film company put pressure on the orchestra to improve their standard of playing. Collins' break came two years later when Herbert Wilcocks invited him to compose the music for his epic film on the life of Queen VictoriaVictoria the Great Collins found himself conducting his former colleagues for this film and its sequel the following year Sixty Glorious Years . In 1939 Collins moved to the RKO studios in Los Angeles where he composed and conducted for the next six years. After the War he travelled between engagements in Los Angeles and London, giving concerts on both sides of the Atlantic often featuring British music. A Collins characteristic is to give a recorded performance the atmosphere of a live concert performance. No doubt his years in Hollywood, working with first class musicians and often sight reading new music contributed to his recording technique. The same fresh sound occurs in Collins' Delius recordings (two examples are to be found on Beulah 1PD26).

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Bassoon Concerto K191

• 1st movement
  
• 2nd movement
  
• 3rd movement
  

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"De Peyer plays the Clarinet Concerto most beautifully. The limpid tone and style will be the more universally winning because they are not associated with a vibrato, except of the most fractional nature and in the places crying out aloud for it ; and the finished technique speaks for itself, if sometimes rather readily--it is possible to feel in some of the more arresting phrases that de Peyer wishes to overtake the orchestra. In fact he doesn't, and Collins has succeeded in ensuring a most satisfactory and stylish ensemble ; though it may be that conductor and soloist found difficulty in agreeing on the elusive right tempo for the Rondo. Everywhere de Peyer adheres strictly to the notes Mozart wrote, or to the notes the early editions, possibly arranged, bequeathed to posterity ; and there are places where a little editing does improve the effect. Add a warm recording, and I have no hesitation whatever in thinking this the best version of the Concerto available." M.M. writing in the Gramophone February 1955

Clarinet Concerto in A K 622

• 1st movement
  
• 2nd movement
  
• 3rd movement
  

Symphony No 40

• 1st movement
  
• 2nd movement
  
• 3rd movement
  
• 4th movement
  

Symphony No 41 Jupiter

• 1st movement
  
• 2nd movement
  
• 3rd movement
  
• 4th movement
  

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