Ralph Vaiughan Williams loved Christmas and had a lifelong passion for carols, admiring their freshness, beauty, and nobility. Vaughan Williams' seasonal compositions reflect his love of Christmas in general and of carols in particular.

The Fantasia on Christmas Carols was dedicated to Cecil Sharp and is based on four traditional English carols. This is the first recording of the alternative scoring.

On Christmas Night was originally called A Christmas Carol as it was a free adaptation of Dicken's story of the same name. The work receives its premiere recording on this release. The score is very atmospheric and juxtaposes complex melodies with simple folk tunes, and interspersed with carols.

The First Nowell is a nativity play for soloists, chorus, and small orchestra. A number of traditional tunes are included in Vaughan Williams's arrangement such as On Christmas Night, The Cherry Tree Carol, and God rest you merry.

REVIEW:

This recording is most evocative of an English Christmas. Roderick Williams’s beautifully rounded tone has a glow, while the CLS strings and the Joyful Company of Singers provide a sensitive, nuanced accompaniment.

-- Gramophone

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Cast: Gods Norman Bailey bass-baritone - Wotan Norman Welsby baritone - Donner Robert Ferguson tenor - Froh Emile Belcourt tenor - Loge Giants Robert Lloyd bass - Fasolt Clifford Grant bass - Fafner Nibelungs Derek Hammond-Stroud baritone - Alberich Gregory Dempsey tenor - Mime Goddesses Katherine Pring mezzo-soprano - Fricka Lois McDonnall soprano - Freia Anne Collins contralto - Erda Rhinemaidens Valerie Masterson soprano - Woglinde Shelagh Squires mezzo-soprano - Wellgunde Helen Attfield contralto - Flosshilde Recorded in: London Coliseum live; 10, 19, 25 & 29 March 1975 Producer(s) John Mordler Sound Engineer(s) Robert Gooch

This recording is Imogen Cooper’s third Chandos release, following earlier discs of works by Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann. Ms. Cooper describes Schumann’s Davidsbu?ndlertänze, op. 6 as a “work of stirring beauty and humor that make it one of the great romantic masterpieces for the piano.” The Abegg Variations, op. 1 is “virtuosic, extroverted and charming”; the Geistervariationen, his last composed piano pieces, “introverted and sparse.” Finally, in the two Novelletten, Imogen Cooper desires to reveal what she calls the “hidden narrative filaments to be discovered.”

Review:

Everything Cooper does speaks of long acquaintance and real empathy. Her readings are unfailingly absorbing.

– Gramophone

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of the most astonishing prodigies in the history of western music, admired by Mahler, Strauss, and Puccini. His compositions were regularly performed by renowned musicians from around the world. Korngold composed his Sextet for Strings between 1914 and 1916, at the same time as his opera Violanta, and for this reason perhaps, it takes on some of the theatrical elements of that work. The first movement presents some highly intricate counterpoint among the different voices. In the Adagio the mood shifts to one of intense sensuousness. The third movement brings relief to the highly charged atmosphere. Here Korngold plays - sometimes with an air of irony, sometimes jokingly, sometimes more straightforwardly - with that most Viennese of genres, the waltz. The finale, in typical Korngold fashion, is high-spirited and good-humoured. The highly successful premiere of the Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello, and Piano took place in Hamburg in 1923 with the composer at the keyboard. The work is in three elaborate and complex movements, with a piano part of considerable difficulty, and string writing on a virtuosic scale. With good humour and charm aplenty, the quintet displays the composer's sunny disposition. In the work Korngold incorporated a musical code that he had developed to send secret, loving messages to his fiancée during concert performances. Described by the magazine Gramophone as 'one of the finest young string quartets', whose members are 'musicians with fascinating things to say', the Doric String Quartet has received rave responses from audiences and critics across the globe. The Quartet's recent recording of Korngold's string quartets was a 2010 Critics' Choice in Gramophone, and the group's most recent recording on Chandos (CHAN 10692), of Schumann's three string quartets, was 'Recording of the Month' in BBC Music. The Quartet is joined on this recording by Kathryn Stott on piano, Jennifer Stumm on viola, and Bartholomew LaFolette on cello.

BAX In the Faery Hills . November Woods . The Garden of Fand. Sinfonietta ? Vernon Handley, cond; BBC PO ? CHANDOS CHAN 10362 (75:44)


Sir Arnold Bax is an important late Romantic composer whose music is essentially neglected at a time when fresh and imaginative orchestral programming is desperately needed. Think of the many times you have attended a concert when a totally faceless and mediocre piece of modern music is played in an attempt to placate critical demand for new music. Then imagine how a world-class orchestra would sound playing Bax?s dramatically compelling, highly melodic, and brilliantly orchestrated music. Yet it almost never appears in concerts outside of England.


Vernon Handley has long been a champion of late Romantic and modern English music in general, and Bax in particular. His widely acclaimed album of the complete Bax Symphonies appeared on many Want Lists recently. Handley consistently stresses the importance of existing underlying form, even in Bax?s most floridly Romantic and seemingly rhapsodic, as opposed to symphonic music. In the symphonies, he moves the music along and refuses to pause and luxuriate in the sumptuous orchestration. This approach generally works well, but is potentially problematic in that it de-emphasizes the ravishing beauty of the critical epilogues of the Third and Sixth Symphonies that may well represent the very essence of Bax. This approach would seem to be even less applicable to the colorfully orchestrated tone poems. Not to worry. This recording is a knockout. Handley takes November Woods at a basically slow tempo that gives plenty of time to emphasize the lush orchestration but does not permit the underlying tension to slacken. The Garden of Fand is simply gorgeous. Handley?s expansive reading manages to find the structural backbone and emphasize forward momentum without sacrificing the poetry and innate beauty in the melodies and rich but transparent orchestration. He even outdoes Sir Adrian Boult here. In the Faery Hills is an orchestral Scherzo in the form of a tone poem. Handley maintains interest throughout the lightly orchestrated piece, but it would benefit from more nimble woodwinds. The rarely heard Sinfonietta (also known as the Symphonic Phantasy) is a unique three-movement piece that pretty much sounds like everything else that Bax wrote, but is not quite as richly Romantic as the large tone poems or as structurally grand as the symphonies. It is an abstract work without a specific program, but never seems stylistically very far from Bax?s seascapes or nature pieces.


This CD has some of the best sound I have ever heard from Chandos. It is luxuriant in texture, and has plenty of fine instrumental detail with none of the hyper-reverberant harshness that characterizes many Chandos recordings. The warm and deep bass drum is heard to great effect in The Garden of Fand and November Woods . This is highly recommended in every conceivable way. One hopes Handley will continue to record the rest of Bax?s tone poems and orchestral music for Chandos.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

It's good to see Neeme Järvi back on Chandos, working in top form, and it's even better to see the label starting a new project that promises to be delightfully worthy of collectors' attention and true to its roots in interesting Romantic repertoire. As a composer, Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935) is seriously underestimated, largely because most of his orchestral music falls into the category of theater or "incidental" music. A good bit of it, and much else besides, has been recorded by Simax, but those discs may be difficult to find (and costly too). It is, in any case, often music of very high quality, as the suite from Mascarade (same story as Nielsen's opera) clearly reveals.

The First Symphony, which dates from the 1920s but could have been written three or four decades earlier, reveals Halvorsen's ties to the school of the Russian "Mighty Five". If you enjoy, say, Borodin's Second, then you're going to love this immaculately crafted, tuneful, and melodically memorable piece. The other three pieces are brief "pops" numbers, but no less attractive or well-made. In short, there's not a note here unworthy of your time and attention, even the tiny La Mélancolie, an arrangement of an earlier tune by Ole Bull. As already noted, Järvi is back to his old exciting, vigorous self, and the orchestra plays with total commitment and enthusiasm. Great sound too. A terrific release.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

Recorded in: Forde Abbey, Somerset 7-9 September 1995 Producer(s) Adrian Hunter Sound Engineer(s) Nicholas Parker

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: The Dufay Collective.

Recorded in: New Broadcasting House, Manchester 12,13 October 1994 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Brian Pidgeon Sound Engineer(s) Don Hartridge