The Cardinal and the Roller, in all it's storytelling and collaboration, captures the power of music to bridge worlds and connect to the shared humanity within us all. At it's heart is the coming together of two ensembles: an American choir led by Dr. Cameron LaBarr and a South African choir led by Dr. Michael Barrett. The Missouri State University Chorale and the University of Pretoria (TUKS) Camerata are both highly respected choral ensembles, yet they differ in many ways. By all expectations, the distinct cultures and sounds of these choirs should not seamlessly work, yet from the very first note they sang together, it was unmistakably clear that this would be an extraordinary project. The album features sixteen tracks, equally representing musical traditions from the United States and South Africa. Ultimately, The Cardinal and the Roller encapsulates the spirit of this album. It reminds us that at the core of humanity lies in a deep longing for connection, integrity, and purpose-to live meaningfully and in harmony with one another. It is our hope that this album creates space for reflection and emotion, and that it leaves you with a renewed sense of hope and joy.
This wonderful Celebration of English Song was recorded especially for SOMM by baritone Roderick Williams deliciously partnered here by Susie Allan in a collection to gladden the hearts of all lovers of English music. This splendidly wide-ranging collection features two well-loved song cycles, Butterworth's Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad and Finzi's Let us Garlands bring. It also includes some of the best- known English songs of the periods before and after World War II - Ireland's world- famous Sea Feverand Great Things and The Kiss and Flying Crooked, from Ian Venables - now widely regarded as the finest living English composer of art songs and a true successor to Benjamin Britten, represented here by two irresistible settings of English folk-songs, The Salley Gardens and The Ploughboy. Also included are songs by Quilter, Gurney, Warlock and E.J. Moeran.
Holst: The Hymn Of Jesus; Delius: Sea Drift & Cynara
Halle
CD
$20.99Sep 01, 2013
Following unparalleled success with recordings for orchestra and choir, including awards in recent years from both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine, the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder present a compelling program of evocative and rarely-performed works. The performances of these works perfectly illustrate the renaissance that has been achieved at the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder, including from the two Hallé choirs. The recording also features acclaimed British baritone Roderick Williams, a soloist at the height of his powers, in repertoire that is perfectly suited to his lyrical, dramatic, and musical expertise.
Each recording in this 40-disc set has been selected by Chandos Managing Director, Ralph Couzens, son of the label founder, because it represents a turning point, or ‘Landmark’, in the development of the label.
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Founded by Brian Couzens in 1979, Chandos quickly established itself as one of the world’s leading classical labels. The ‘Chandos Sound’ has become a benchmark for quality, renowned alike among artists and critics around the globe.
From its inception, Chandos has specialised in recording British music, and in bringing lesser-known (and unknown) music to public attention. Released to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the label, this handsomely packaged 40-disc set comprises 40 complete recordings from Chandos’ extensive catalogue.
Each of the four decades is represented, and each recording has been hand-picked by the Managing Director, Ralph Couzens, because it represents a turning point, or ‘Landmark’, in the development of the label.
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Excerpts from select reviews of previously released volumes included in this set:
Prokofiev: Symphony No 6, Waltzes Suite, Etc. / Järvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra - NLA
This 1984 recording put the somewhat neglected Sixth Symphony of Prokofiev back on the musical map; it remains on balance the finest available.
– ClassicsToday.com
Vaughan Williams: London Symphony; Butterworth: Banks of Green Willow / Hickox, LSO
Conductor and orchestra respond with an unquenchable spirit, generous flexibility and tender affection that suit VW’s admirably ambitious inspiration to a T, and Chandos’s sound is big and bold to match. Quite simply, an essential purchase for anyone remotely interested in British music.
– Gramophone
Ravel, Debussy & Massenet / Bavouzet, Tortelier, BBC Symphony Bavouzet gets the tempo changes in Ravel's G Major Concerto absolutely right, following up with one of the most songfully flowing and elegantly shaped accounts of the Adagio on disc, and concluding with an absolutely scorching finale. The Massenet encores are both novel and delightful.
Elgar: Falstaff / Williams, Davis, BBC Philharmonic
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Nov 03, 2017
Sir Andrew Davis takes his multi-award-winning Elgar discography to the next level with breathtaking interpretations of Falstaff, Elgar’s most accomplished and characteristic work, and several orchestral songs, with exemplary support from the BBC Philharmonic, all recorded in surround-sound. Owing to its technical challenges and more complex harmonic language, the composer always had a high opinion of Falstaff, saying that he had enjoyed writing i Gramophonet ‘more than any other music I have ever composed and perhaps for that reason it may prove to be among my best efforts’. His earlier music for Grania and Diarmid pays tribute to the Irish legend of Diarmuid and Grainne; the Funeral March is probably Elgar’s noblest creation, and echoes the popular Pomp and Circumstance Marches. The various less well-known songs, given heroic interpretations by the baritone Roderick Williams OBE, span the multiple facets of Elgar’s style, from the stern and dramatic impressions of Op. 60 to the satirical and impish jollity of ‘Kindly do not SMOKE’.
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REVIEW:
This is a superbly perceptive traversal of Elgar's Falstaff, evincing a strength of purpose, emotional candor, and meticulous attention to detail. Right from the outset there's an irresistibly idiomatic swagger, acquity, and temperament. Baritone Roderick Williams is at his eloquent best in an attractive selection of orchestral songs.
Celebrated soloists Roderick Wiliams and Christopher Glynn perform a new English translation of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. Composed in 1827 whilst in the grip of the illness that would ultimately kill him, Schubert’s setting of Wilhelm Muller’s poetry takes on an added tragic interpretation as it follows the narrative of a spurned lover travelling through a cold and barren landscape. Christopher Glynn writes on this new recording: “We hope this Winter Journey can offer English-speaking listeners a way to experience the story’s sense alongside the music’s sound, with something of the same directness that Schubert surely intended when he sat down at the piano in 1827 and sang these songs for the first time to his friends.” This release is the first in a series of three English language programmes of Schubert’s song cycles. Future releases include The Shepherd on the Rock (Der Hirt auf dem Felsen) and The Fair Maid of the Mill (Die schöne Müllerin).
English Song Series 20 - Butterworth: Songs From A Shropshire Lad, Folk Songs From Sussex
Naxos
CD
$19.99Jul 27, 2010
One of England’s most distinctive composers, George Butterworth belonged to the generation of young men decimated in the Great War of 1914–1918. His sensitive and melancholic settings of poems from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, with their subject matter of the futility and arbitrariness of war, are small-scale masterpieces. Of particular note are the Loveliest of Trees, describing the passing of the seasons, and the ghostly and elegiac Is my team ploughing? The Folk Songs from Sussex and settings of poems by R.L. Stevenson, Shelley and Wilde, whose subject matter revolves around flirtation, love, courtship, marriage and desertion, are no less notable for their attention to detail, linguistic nuance and delicate, economical piano writing.
English Song Series 14 - Vaughan Williams: Songs Of Travel
Naxos
CD
$19.99Oct 18, 2005
This disc brings us three of Vaughan Williams?s finest song cycles, and the single song Linden Lea, and the combination is very satisfying. Vaughan Williams wrote some of the 20th century?s most beautiful and evocative songs, songs that sound like no other composer and that stay long in the memory after one gets to know them. Vaughan Williams had a keen ear for text-setting, and is one of the rare 20th-century composers whose music amplifies the poems he set without overwhelming them.
This is a lovely compilation, featuring some of the composer?s most effective works in this form. The performances are very good, without erasing the best competition from one?s mind. Roderick Williams is an intelligent and musical singer, with a pleasant light baritone voice. The tone is a bit throaty, but not offensively so, and he sings with a reasonably strong feel for dramatic inflection. There is no question that those who find this repertoire appealing will enjoy this disc, although Naxos could have helped improve that enjoyment by providing texts.
It is when we start comparing with the best competition that the limitations of these performances become clear. Benjamin Luxon?s richly colored and imaginatively inflected performances of the Songs of Travel and Poems by Fredegond Shove (Chandos CHAN 8475), Anthony Rolfe Johnson?s similarly effective recording of the Songs of Travel and The House of Life (EMI 75785) are both more satisfying recordings, not to mention Bryn Terfel?s remarkable reading of the Songs of Travel (DG 445 946), which is coupled with other English songs.
Still, if you own none of this repertoire and find this particular compilation an effective program, Williams and Burnside give good, solid performances that make clear the composer?s genius in this idiom.
Roderick Williams has already recorded the Finzi song-cycles I Said to Love, Let Us Garlands Bring, and Before and After Summer on Naxos. Here he continues the sterling work.
English solo song is a deceptive genre. Although the songs often appear simple, in actual fact they are not easy to pull off effectively. For them to work, every nuance must be brought out, every slightly inflection must be spot-on, every word invested with the right emotion. Williams is no stranger to English solo song and always gets to the heart of the work. Here he is, as always, beautifully sympathetic, awake to all nuances of the text – listen to wonderful shades of light and dark in When I set out for Lyonesse, to the poignancy in Lizbie Brown and the chilling intensity in Clock of the Years. He demonstrates excellent versatility – from the rumbustious Rollicum-Rorum, scintillatingly performed – through to the intense and serious (Ode on the Rejection of St. Cecilia), or the beautifully tender – The Birthnight.
This is the only version of By Footpath and Stile currently available. It was Finzi’s earliest Hardy setting, written in 1921-22, and was later withdrawn by the composer, whose plans to revise it were not fully seen through. The work was abandoned until Finzi’s friend, the composer Howard Ferguson edited it for republication. Although not as convincing as Finzi’s later Hardy settings, it nonetheless demonstrates the composer in the process of finding his own “voice”. The songs are deftly crafted, and often deeply moving. It is scored for string quartet accompaniment, sensitively performed here by the Sacconi Quartet.
Williams has a lovely rich, dark tone, and exquisite enunciation that facilitates his excellent communication of the words and the meaning. He is well accompanied by Iain Burnside. Glorious songs, and brilliantly performed.
SOMM Recordings' historic, enthusiastically reviewed survey of Sir Hubert Parry's 12 Sets of English Lyrics reaches it's end with a third revelatory volume. Volume III features pianist Andrew West and baritone Roderick Williams (both heard on Volumes I and II) and the return of soprano Sarah Fox (who appeared on Volume II). Composed between 1874 and shortly before Parry's death in 1918, the English Lyrics come from a time of immense change as old certainties gave way to new complexity and a global war that would utterly change Britain's standing in the world. Parry's riposte was the English Lyrics: a defiant assertion that English poetry was the equal of Germany's Lied and French mélodies and arguably created the template for the development of the emerging English art-song. The texts of many of the 25 songs - including some of his finest - on this recording carry deeply personal meanings for Parry, his response to them as varied as mood dictates and all realized with consummate insight and craftsmanship. Settings of AP Graves, Julia Chatterton and Julian Sturgis are to the fore, although lyrics by Herbert Warner and the American poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Langdon Elwyn Mitchell are also to be heard in a spell- binding conclusion to an acclaimed series. Parry's only setting of Christina Rossetti, 'My heart is like a singing bird,' is delightfully effusive, 'When the Sun's Great Orb,' Wagner-like in it's imagining of the end of days, 'The child and the twilight' vividly full of night-time fears. Reviewing Volume I, BBC Music Magazine praised the "many pleasurable moments in this richly enjoyable album" with Classical Ear summing it up as being "In a word: blissful". Of Volume II, Robert Hugill applauded "this enterprising and illuminating survey", while MusicWeb International said: "Lovers of English songs, and Parry in particular, should be in their element with this satisfying album on Somm".
English Song Series 22 - Britten: Songs & Proverbs Of William Blake
Naxos
CD
$19.99May 29, 2012
"This music has the power to connect the avant-garde with the lost paradise of tonality,’ said Robin Holloway once about Britten. He might have been talking about this Blake set, a standout in Britten’s still often underrated output of the 1960s, written for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau after his contribution to the War Requiem.
Putting this new Roderick Williams recording immediately up against the composer and Fischer-Dieskau is like going from hymns ancient to hymns modern. Williams finds an ideal emotional stance—involved, totally word-conscious but never melodramatic…as a recorded recital, Williams—and Burnside, who is similarly colourful but keeps an interpretative distance from pumping up the text—have created an outstanding achievement, one to set alongside the Gerald Finley/Julius Drake disc. Their remaining items, including Tit for Tat—Britten’s ‘reissue’ of early 1929-31 Walter de la Mare settings—shine in a similar way. The Potton Hall recording is clean and clear with excellent instrument/voice balance."
-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone [6/2012]
This disc couples a masterpiece from Britten’s maturity and songs written in his youth. The latter were revived and gathered together as a set in his later years. Britten wrote very little for baritone, but I do think it a pity that rather than seek an interesting work by another composer to complement these two works, it was decided to complete the disc with folk-songs. Beautiful though these arrangements are, many collectors will have quite enough Oliver Cromwells and Little Sir Williams on the shelves, thank you. They are, however, beautifully sung here. There is a very brisk Plough Boy, and Roderick Williams tones in his voice beautifully for the gentler numbers. Ca’ the yowes, a minor masterpiece, is magnificently grand. Overall, the delivery is simple, neither folk-song nor art-song, and refreshingly avoiding the coy or arch in the likes of The foggy, foggy dew. No, Williams presents them unadorned, and with a beautiful legato line, as a series of lovely tunes with inventive and striking accompaniments. Others, some of whom set them up as quasi-operatic scenes, do inject more life into some of the songs, not always to their advantage.
Tit for Tat, a set of five short songs to poems by Walter de la Mare, was first performed in 1969 by John Shirley-Quirk with the composer at the piano. I have in my head the sound of Shirley-Quirk singing these songs, but can’t for the life of me remember where or when it comes from. The songs were written when Britten was in his teens, and he had only recently gathered them together and, with minimal editing, prepared them for publication. They are accomplished works that can, on the whole, be enjoyed without making allowances for the composer’s age. There is not the psychological insight - neither into the poems nor into the mind of the listener - that you find in the mature composer’s vocal music. Nor is the piano part so developed. Listen however to the second song, “Autumn”: everything that was to come is there in embryonic form. It would be easy to exaggerate the claims of these songs, but presented so cleanly and with such understanding as do Williams and his superb pianist, Iain Burnside, they make just the effect the mature composer surely intended.
Philip Lancaster’s booklet essay casts plenty of light on the programme. Walter de la Mare’s poems are sadly not given, but the folk-song texts do appear, as do the texts of the masterly Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. This work was composed for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and is dedicated to him. The dedication reads “For Dieter: the past and the future. It is a proper, integrated song-cycle, but which is sung without a break. Poems and proverbs alternate, creating a continuous text which was chosen and arranged in order by Peter Pears, no doubt with input from the composer. Words and music combine to create a cycle that maintains a single mood throughout its length, one of melancholy observation. In his book Britten, Voice and Piano, Stephen Johnson recounts how the relationship between Fischer-Dieskau and Britten, though nourished by mutual admiration, was not an easy one. The sessions for their Decca recording of December 1965 were by all accounts particularly fraught, but this is hardly audible in the finished result, which is a performance of extraordinary mastery. Fischer-Dieskau is magnificent, and the composer’s piano playing is miraculous. Listen, for example, in the ppp quavers that introduce A Poison Tree, how he manages to conceal the inconvenient fact that a piano works by hammers striking on keys. This is the kind of piano playing that prompted Gerald Moore, in his book Am I Too Loud?, to proclaim Britten as “the world’s greatest living accompanist”. Britten’s recorded legacy is essential for any admirer of his work, but happily the era is now long gone when attempts by other performers to stamp their own personality on the music seemed like an affront to the composer’s memory. Iain Burnside is outstandingly fine on this disc. It seems almost insulting to state that his playing is technically impeccable, but I do state it, whilst adding that he is profoundly in tune with the music and with the singer’s needs. Roderick Williams gives a performance of great vision, beautifully sung, that will satisfy any listener who discovers the work from this performance. In general, Fischer-Dieskau employs a wider range of vocal colour that allows him, in The ChimneySweeper, for example, to play the part of the oppressed child with remarkable vividness. Another example would be at the line “And blights with plagues the marriage hearse” in London, where Williams doesn’t really match Fischer-Dieskau’s disillusioned bitterness. Williams is slower, too, the song hardly reflecting the composer’s marking of “Very agitated”. If this gives the impression that the reading is a pale one, the opposite is the case. There is a suggestion of whimsy in Fischer-Dieskau’s performance of The Fly that is absent in Williams’ reading, and Williams launches Ah! Sun-flower with a superb crescendo barely observed by Fischer-Dieskau. The end of the work, too, is very fine indeed from both artists, not quite resigned, not quite hopeless.
This album presents a new arrangement of Franz Schubert's song cycle Die schone Mullerin, performed by baritone Roderick Williams with the Carducci Quartet. Originally composed in 1823 for voice and piano, the cycle sets poems by Wilhelm Muller that trace the emotional journey of a young miller through hope, love, jealousy and despair. In this recording, the piano part is reimagined for string quartet, drawing out the implied instrumental textures in Schubert's writing while preserving the narrative flow of the songs. The arrangement offers a fresh perspective on the work's structure and atmosphere, highlighting it's central Romantic themes of nature, longing and reflection.
Skempton: Man & Bat, Piano Concerto, The Moon Is Flashing, Eternity's Sunrise / Ensemble 360
First Hand Records
CD
$21.99Oct 18, 2019
Howard Skempton was born in Chester in 1947 and has worked as a composer, accordionist and music publisher. He studied in London with Cornelius Cardew which helped him to discover a musical language of great simplicity. Since then he has continued to write undeflected by compositional trends, producing a corpus of more than 300 works- many pieces being miniatures for solo piano or accordion. Skempton calls these pieces ‘the central nervous system’ of his work. His catalogue of works is as diverse as it is long, ranging from pieces for solo cello and guitar to the Chamber Concerto for fifteen players, the Concerto for Hurdy-Gurdy and Percussion, and Lento, premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1991. His works are performed on this new release by Ensemble 360 alongside pianist Tim Horton, and vocalists Roderick Williams and James Gilchrist.
Schubert: Schwanengesang - Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte / Williams, Burnside
Chandos
CD
$21.99May 01, 2020
Roderick Williams writes: “Although only twelve years separate the composition of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the ethos and sound world of the two works are markedly different. Pairing them on the concert platform seemed an obvious choice on one hand, but I was reminded not to try to perform Beethoven in the way I perform Schubert. For one thing, the former still has the ring of the late classical, while the latter explores the darkness of the early romantic. For this reason, we decided to record the two works in slightly different soundscapes. In An die ferne Geliebte, the inventiveness of Beethoven is best expressed in the piano writing, while the vocal part is deliberately simple, strophic (the music is repeated for each stanza), and folk-like. ...the sixth song states that these songs are offered ‘ohne Kunstgepräng’. And so we have set the voice slightly more distantly in the balance, giving the piano due prominence; the effect is almost as if I were singing over Iain’s shoulder. Schwanengesang is recorded more traditionally: in these most extraordinary and progressive songs the vocal line is supported by the piano, in equal partnership. Roderick Williams.”
Somervell: A Shropshire Lad & Maud / Williams, Allan
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99May 15, 2020
SOMM Recordings announces an important new recording of two classic English song cycles by Sir Arthur Somervell – Maud and A Shropshire Lad – from the acclaimed partnership of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan. Hailed as “the English Schumann” for his mastery of song setting, song cycles in particular, Somervell’s music is marked by a distinctive blend of lyricism and harmony that makes itself indelibly felt in these two seminal works of the English song repertoire. His first cycle, Maud, setting 13 poems from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s dark monodrama, was first performed in 1899 at the height of a fashion for recitals of songs sung in English. An intense, impassioned portrayal of infatuation, it is marked by remarkably eloquent and revealing relationships between voice and text, and voice and piano. Composed in 1904, the 10 poems from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad portray a young man wistfully contemplating nature, life and love at the age of 20 before following him through a life full of incident, the horror of the First World War and growing self-awareness. It prompted from Somervell texturally rich and varied music shot through with an aching lyricism all the more powerful and potent for its folk song-like simplicity and directness. Completing the recital are the enchanting, ever-popular lullaby Shepherd’s Cradle Song and wistful tale of childhood sweethearts with texts by Edgar Allan Poe, A Kingdom by the Sea. British music authority Jeremy Dibble provides informative booklet notes and Roderick Williams a revealing take on Somervell’s music from a singer’s perspective.
Schubert: Die schone Mullerin / Williams, Burnside
Chandos
CD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Jul 05, 2019
In this the first of a series of three recordings of Schubert’s great song cycles for Chandos, Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside bring their formidable talents to bear on one of the pinnacles of classical lieder. In November 2015, Williams decided to immerse himself in an intensive three-year period of studying and performing the three song cycles by Schubert, following an invitation from the Wigmore Hall to perform them- with Iain- in their 2017/18 season. The process has involved not just performances in concert around the globe, but open rehearsals, master-classes, workshops, and radio broadcasts. Roderick Williams has documented all of these experiences in great detail in his fascinating Schubert Cycle Project blog. He writes: “Somewhere along the way I came to a decision; that my eventual performances at the Wigmore would not be the ultimate goal of my study; rather, the study itself, the act of preparation would be my focus. It is possible that other singers might find the process interesting, even if only to share some of the grind that is most often done alone; it is also possible that others might be intrigued, especially audiences, perhaps even (fellow) students.”
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REVIEW:
This is a beautiful and thoughtful account of Die schöne Müllerin. Roderick Williams’ approach is supremely intelligent and apart from the interpretative care he takes, his singing per se will give enormous pleasure.
Stanford: Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense / Williams, Way, West
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99Jan 22, 2021
SOMM RECORDINGS announces a major new recording of songs by Charles Villiers Stanford including the first complete recording of Songs of Faith and 12 first recordings of other distinctively vital songs. Songs of Love, Faith and Nonsense continues SOMM’s widely acclaimed commitment to Stanford’s music with baritone Roderick Williams, tenor James Way (making his SOMM debut) and pianist Andrew West throwing revealing new light on his gift for word setting and the variety of his responses to matters of emotional ardor, spiritual fervency and the sublime nonsense poems of Edward Lear. Setting poems by Tennyson and Walt Whitman, Songs of Faith demonstrates Stanford’s ability to give unique expression to the profound and the arcane with music of dramatic force and harmonic ingenuity. Three songs by Robert Bridges (librettist for Stanford’s oratorio Eden) and four songs from the opera Shamus O’Brien tap into Stanford’s Irish roots to colorful and evocative effect. Composed to mark his 25th wedding anniversary and receiving its first recording, The Triumph of Love sets five sonnets by his close cousin, Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes, in richly executed settings. The delightful Nonsense Rhymes taken from Edward Lear’s inimitably playful, poignant and pointed limericks show a different side to Stanford, a “highly articulate, dry humor like many literary Irishmen of his era”, as Jeremy Dibble says in his authoritative booklet notes.
Sing, Precious Music / Mark Williams, Choir Of Magdalen College
Opus Arte
CD
$19.99Oct 23, 2020
Founded in 1480, the historic traditions and refined sound of the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, have proven fertile ground for generations of composers. From the richly inventive and expansive writing of John Sheppard to the mysticism and passion of James Whitbourn’s recent settings, this programme celebrates a unique and finely crafted legacy of choral music and sublime singing that flourishes in our time as much as it did in the 15th century. “… an hour of listening that is both of the moment and utterly timeless.” (The Independent on the 2013 album Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri) “The interpretations are forthright and plangent, the young soloists spirited…” (The Times on the 2016 album Tomkins: Choral Works)
Mahler: Songs (Arranged by Schoenberg) / Falletta, Virginia Philharmonic
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Oct 14, 2016
Arnold Schoenberg founded the Society for Private Musical Performances in 1918 to perform contemporary music from "Mahler to the present". Mahler had been an early supporter of Schoenberg's music, and Schoenberg repaid the favor by arranging Mahler's orchestral works for chamber ensemble and including them at the society's concerts. The colorful Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen are given a feel of great intimacy in this form, while the lighter scoring of Das Lied von der Erde has the advantage of clarifying instrumental textures, its magical effects capturing "the finite nature of earthly things".
Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play not frequently performed in the late 17th century, nor very well regarded (“the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life” - Samuel Pepys’ diary, 1662). Despite this, the play would go on to work well within an opera, as the characters of Pyramus and Thisbe could conjure up singing and dancing accomplices. Purcell’s masterful composition, Gabrieli’s first-class performance, and McCreesh’s superb interpretation demonstrate why their recordings are seen as some of the best in classical music today.
Gabrieli are world-renowned interpreters of great vocal and instrumental repertoire, from the Renaissance to the present day. Founded by Paul McCreesh in 1982, Gabrieli have both outgrown and remained true to their original identity: whilst the ensemble’s repertoire has expanded beyond any expectation, McCreesh’s ever-questioning spirit, expressive musicianship and a healthy degree of iconoclasm remain constant and are reflected in the ensemble’s dynamic performances. Gabrieli’s repertoire includes major works of the oratorio tradition, virtuosic a cappella programmes and mold-breaking reconstructions of music for historical events. Above all, Gabrieli aims to create thought-provoking performances which stand out from the crowd.
REVIEWS:
How to pick highlights when everything is a highlight? The First Music introduces us to the string band’s crisp, punchy execution, incising phrasing and tight ensemble. The natural trumpets, especially built for this recording, blaze out triumphantly in the Second Music’s Overture. Further on, they share the limelight with chorus and timpani in the gloriously Handelian “Hail Great Parent of us All”.
By contrast, there are the exquisite recorders and theorbo in the delicate, charming “Symphony in Imitation of Birds”, and the mournful nymph accompanied by a consoling oboe in the air “Oh Let Me Ever, Ever Weep”. Only slightly less melancholy is the gorgeous “If Love’s a Sweet Passion” for nymph, chorus and fawn; the string playing here is as entrancing as the singing. Then there are those brilliant comic moments, like the drunk blindfolded poet tormented by fairies. Or Coridon and Mopsa lustily singing “Now the Maids and the Men are making of Hay” to the frenzied strumming of guitar.
--Limelight
There’s an air of generosity and joy about this recording, as well as a communicative, engaging sense of theatrical narrative that works on its own terms. Reference is made in the thorough and splendid booklet notes which is the work of several hands – and is once again festooned with black and white photographs of a ‘cow and leaf’ nature – regarding the placement of the Chaconne to end the work but that won’t come as a surprise for those who have John Eliot Gardiner’s recording.
This is an elegant, refined and strongly realized performance. Earthier alternatives exist...but if you follow McCreesh and his forces you will lack for little in polish and affect, in the truest sense.
