Although he had initially declined the commission, Delius was persuaded to write the incidental music for Hassan by the actor and director Basil Dean in July 1920, for performances he was planning for His Majesty’s Theatre, London, the following year. Much of the music was drafted within a few weeks, and the score would eventually prove one of the greatest successes of Delius’s career. Dean’s plans for the project encountered significant obstacles and delays, however, and he had to commission additional music from Delius to cover the production’s complex scene changes. The London première eventually took place on 20 September 1923 and was a critical sensation.

Flecker’s play is a sinuous double-narrative that intertwines the twin stories of the lovelorn but worldly-wise Hassan, confectioner at the court of the cruel and vindictive Caliph Haroun al Rashid (called Haroun ar Rashid in Flecker’s play), and the young lovers Pervaneh and Rafi, caught up in the aftermath of a failed uprising and condemned to a terrifying and brutally protracted death. In tone and setting, Flecker’s text drew on nineteenth-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights as well as other heavily fictionalized accounts and travel literature. Very much a product of the racial and class-based attitudes of its time, the play revels in imaginary scenes of a despotic Eastern court and its gruesomely barbaric practices.

This keenly anticipated album from Sinfonia of London and John Wilson features two of the greatest British works for string orchestra: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. Elgar’s ground-breaking work, commissioned for the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra and premièred in 1905, is inspired by the baroque concerto grosso, and features a solo string quartet contrasted with the full symphonic string section. These orchestral forces were also adopted by Herbert Howells in his Concerto for String Orchestra, from 1938. Delius’s Late Swallows is the only piece not originally composed for string orchestra; it was arranged (from the slow movement of Delius’s String Quartet) by his amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD, and digitally in Spatial Audio.

REVIEW:

As ever, the brilliance of the playing makes this essential listening, the precision and attention to detail alive and exhilarating. The entire disc holds the listener in its grip, but the last movement of the Elgar, urgent and impassioned, has you on the edge of your seat: a tour de force.

-- Guardian (UK)

A MusicWeb International Recommended Recording

I think that this is tenth disc to be issued by Chandos in their series of recordings by The Sinfonia of London under John Wilson. All are Super Audio CDs recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz, and in order to appreciate the full glory of the sound, it is necessary to play them through an SACD player, although I hasten to add that they will reproduce at CD quality when played through a standard CD player. If you have multi-channel Hi-Fi, the extra fullness of surround sound can also be experienced.

Given that the Sinfonia of London was re-established in 2018 as a recording orchestra, staffed by top players from British and international ensembles, the superb ensemble playing is not surprising, and the Chandos recording engineers have given it the very fullest of service...A mildly reverberant acoustic provides a perfect cushion for the orchestra, and, as elsewhere, the strings in the vigorous outer movements of the Howells Concerto are splendid in their unanimity and fullness of tone. The necessarily less aggressive playing in the slow movement has a lovely bloom to the playing.

The disc closes with a fine performance of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, and as in the Tallis Fantasia, I soon became aware of the extremes of dynamic achieved. This lovely, utterly memorable work is so familiar that I just sat back and let it wash over me.

The presentation of the SACD is up to Chandos’ normal high standards, with a detailed analysis of the gestation and structure of each work (particularly of the Howells) and a history of the orchestra, accompanying a brief biography of John Wilson, all in English, French and German.

-- MusicWeb International (Jim Westhead)

The legacy of the First World War left its mark on the music of near contemporaries Edward Elgar and Frederick Delius. The powerful outer movements of Elgar's String Quartet in E minor frame a wistful and sombre Andante piacevole. Delius was dissatisfied with the first, three-movement version of his Quartet and revised the score. On this recording the final 1917 version is followed by the original versions of the opening movement and of the Late Swallows slow movement, offering a rare glimpse into Delius's compositional workshop.

THE TWO PIANISTS featured here were contemporaries, both English. Both made a small number of recordings for Columbia between 1926 and 1930 and today are largely forgotten. Howard-Jones was of an academic nature whose interpretations were described as having ‘scholarly and fastidious profundity’. He excelled in Bach and Brahms and his ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ recordings in particular offer playing of rare spirituality and beauty. As a friend of the composer and dedicatee of five of the piano pieces, his Delius recordings, which comprise the complete meagre published output for solo piano by the composer, have a unique authority. Edward Isaacs, who revelled in the repertoire of Chopin and Liszt, was described as ‘a kindly genial companion and a witty charming raconteur’. His recordings radiate brilliance and joie de vivre. This is the first time most of these discs have been reissued since the days of the original 78s. An added bonus is the discovery of a wonderful previously unpublished Howard-Jones recording of Beethoven’s Rondo in G major.

Frederick Delius and Arnold Bax both made significant contributions to the part-song repertoire, each leaving a compelling testament to his highly individual creative personality. Delius's earlier choral songs are nostalgic for the worlds of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Grieg, while the brooding contours of On Craig Ddu results in one of his most remarkable creations. The allure of landscapes and elemental forces was powerful for both composers; the subtle tensions and gorgeously layered harmonies of Bax's settings also evoking historical remoteness and other-worldly enchantment.

John Rutter writes: Tranquillity is a state of mind. You might be more likely to describe a favorite countryside scene rather than a person as ‘tranquil’, but you are really describing the effect it has on you. You feel calm, serene, still, at peace, relaxed, untroubled, chilled-out . . . perhaps we have so many different words for this state of mind because it is so important, and yet so elusive in an often noisy, frantic world.

Music has an extraordinary power to evoke tranquillity – as is revealed in the eleven pieces I have chosen to make up this collection. Ten of them happen to be among my personal favorites, drawn from the music of seven composers, plus the treasure trove of anonymous folk music, and I have added an orchestral version of my choral setting of Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace, a text formerly believed to be by St Francis of Assisi.

CONTENTS:

• trad.: She moved through the fair
• Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1
• Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
• Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
• Rutter: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace
• Grieg: Symphonic Dance, Op. 64 No. 2
• Bach: Bist du bei mir [When you are with me]
• Ravel: Sonatine: Mouvement de Menuet
• Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
• Handel: Semele: Where’er you walk
• Rutter: Sheep may safely graze

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a thrilling first collaboration between long-time SOMM stablemates, baritone Roderick Williams and the Coull Quartet, joined by tenor James Gilchrist and soprano Sophie Bevan. With six world premiere recordings, On This Shining Night is a ravishing recital focusing revealingly on a 20th-century phenomenon: works for voice and string quartet. It takes its title from a James Agate setting by Samuel Barber (whose masterly "Dover Beach" is also heard), here in a sublime arrangement by Roderick Williams. Williams also provides arrangements of Barber’s "Sleep Now" and three Frederick Delius pieces from his Seven Songs from the Norwegian: the evocative "Twilight Fancies," vivacious "Young Venevil" and exotic "I-Brasil." They serve, as Robert Matthew-Walker’s erudite booklet notes observe, as companions to 11 songs by Delius’s close friend and associate, Peter Warlock, including the gentle intimacy of "Corpus Christi," the “mini-cantata” "Sorrow’s Lullaby," and unique free-recitative of "My gostly vader."

Composed for Williams and the Coull Quartet, Sally Beamish’s five-part Tree Carols offer striking, variegated settings of poems by Fiona Sampson in their premiere recording. Roderick Williams’ SOMM catalogue include the acclaimed three-volume Twelve Sets of English Lyrics by Hubert Parry (SOMMCD 257, 270, 272), Sally Beamish’s Four Songs from Hafez (Birdsong, SOMMCD 0633), and the classic English song cycles A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), which MusicWeb International declared a “game changer… in terms of our appreciation of Arthur Somervell’s songs”. The Coull Quartet has recorded a wide repertoire for SOMM. Their recording of Nicholas Maw and Benjamin Britten quartets (SOMMCD 065) was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice and a BBC Music Magazine Benchmark Recording. Gramophone declared their recent SOMM release with Clélia Iruzun, Treasures from the New World, featuring piano quintets by Amy Beach and Henrique Oswald (SOMMCD 0609), “a delight”.

The String Quartet in E minor by Ethel Smyth, one of the most innovative and original figures in English music, has a masterful coherence and consistency. With eloquent writing for the viola in particular, it is both playful and reverential, and ends with a flourish – forthright, bold and uncompromising, like Smyth herself. Delius wrote the early String Quartet in 1888 but it was rejected for performance and he was later to reuse the Scherzo for his mature Quartet of 1916–19. In 2018 the score of the two opening movements of the 1888 Quartet, long assumed lost, reappeared at auction and have been edited and reunited with the final two in this premiere recording, which adds significantly to our understanding of Delius’s early compositional directions.

REVIEWS:

A Delius discovery is brought to life with compelling musicianship…The Villiers Quartet gives it a fine first recording, captured in warm and well-balanced sound.

-- The Strad

Full marks to the Villiers Quartet for bringing this new and challenging repertoire to life.

-- Gramophone

...what I like about this quartet very much is its questing nature – this is a kind of musical laboratory for Delius to test out ideas, nascent harmonies and textures that would define his mature music in the years ahead.

-- MusicWeb International