The narrative of the young boy in Caradog Prichard's semi-autobiographical novel has a dreamlike quality, mingling scenes from his native village of Bethesda in North Wales with it's surroundings in the years leading up to and during the First World War. Central to the boy's life is the figure of his Mam, whose mental decline and subsequent confinement in Denby Asylum forms the central crisis of the novel. In these musical scenes, whose texts are drawn from Prichard's novel, he recalls the mysterious Queen Of The Black Lake; his Mam's poignant singing of the Welsh hymn Cyfammod; her description of a Welsh Revivalist meeting; the Sunday in church when a young pregnant woman is refused Communion; Mam's decline and journey to Denby Asylum; his return to the Black Lake and farewell to it's mysterious Queen.

Although all three works recorded here were originally composed early in Havergal Brian's career, only the overture Doctor Merryheart, written in 1911-12 and premiered within months of it's completion, is entirely 'early Brian'. Of the other two, the creation of what we now know as Psalm 23, traversed 40 years, and By the Waters of Babylon is a posthumous reconstruction, done with enormous skill and idiomatic fidelity by the composer and Brian expert Rodney Newton.

Bennett's first three piano concertos were composed at a rate of one a year, in 1832, 1833, and 1834, each one being started during his summer vacation and completed during the autumn term at the Royal Academy of Music. The First Concerto made such an impact that Bennett was invited to perform it before King William IV and Queen Adelaide at Windsor Castle. Following his habit of beginning the composition of a new piano concerto during the quieter months of the summer, the Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 19, was composed during the summer of 1838. In July, Bennett wrote to both Mendelssohn and the concert director at the Gewandhaus that he had composed a new concerto expressly for performance at the Gewandhaus when he next visited Germany. The first performance took place in London on 26 September before a small audience at the RAM, with the slow movement a revised version of A Stroll through the Meadows, which had originally been composed for his earlier F minor Concerto (numbered in modern times No. 5). © Rosemary Firman

Bennett was acknowledged both in England and Germany as an outstanding pianist, and his finest and most characteristic music was composed for his own instrument. As well as numerous works for solo piano, including two sonatas, he composed six piano concertos and a single-movement Caprice for piano and orchestra. He gave public performances of all his works for piano and orchestra with himself as soloist. It was during the heady days of Bennett's third long visit to his friends in Leipzig, from January to March 1842, that he mentioned in correspondence that he was working on a new concerto, which he hoped to perform before leaving for London. In the event, this did not happen, but a substantial amount of work must have been done at this stage on what was to become the unpublished Piano Concerto No. 6 in A minor, WO 48. Bennett did further work on the concerto in the summer of 1843 and hoped to publish it, but changes to his personal circumstances contributed towards further delays. His son claimed that he always intended it to be published, but as the years passed, the more out-of-date it became.

'When I'm composing, not only have I to create music, I must also search for the best way of putting it across. It means being on the alert the whole time; writing - then criticizing what I've written - and if it won't do, scrap it and start again - more criticism - and so on until I've done everything within my power to make the music live and flow naturally'. These insights from Grace Williams into her approach to the compositional process show her strong desire to communicate fluently and sincerely with her listeners. Also evident from this quotation is her professionalism, technical integrity and formidable capacity for self-criticism. She held herself and her art to the highest standards, withdrawing and destroying scores which failed to live up to her ideals. It can be inferred from this that she regarded the works which survived elimination as worthy of her musical legacy.

Eleanor Alberga is always at pains to tell her listeners that her pieces can be enjoyed as pure music, without narrative and associations. So, the three pieces in this album evoke countless varieties of moods, textures, relationships and energies that will speak uniquely to the ear of each individual listener. But Eleanor's ever-curious, inventive and fertile sensibility means there is almost always an intriguing subtext of her own to everything she writes. And this is always worth exploring. Dancing with the Shadow was written in 1990 and is scored for six solo instrumentalists. Eleanor conceived the piece as an evocation of the individual's attempts to explore their darker side, the "shadow" of the title. She describes the piece as, "consistently dealing with the negative and positive sides of the human psyche and charting the way an individual comes to terms with and even embraces the riches of their shadow." The journey therefore is not one fraught with drama and crisis but is more of a playful dialogue - by turns dreamy, animated, reflective and humorous. Each movement is scored for a different combination of instruments, and each successive movement adds an extra player. Ten years after Dancing with the Shadow, Eleanor created another scintillating work, On a Bat's Back I do Fly, inspired this time by a song from Shakespeare's The Tempest. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the way Eleanor has kindled this mysterious and unusual sonic world is her use of tuned percussion, which draws the listener gently into Ariel's playful miniature kingdom - a backlit world, as Eleanor describes it, that is both, "bright, yet nocturnal and other-worldly." Langvad was composed six years after 'On a Bat's Back I do Fly' for a summer chamber music festival run by Eleanor's husband, the violinist Thomas Bowes. Langvad is made of one movement, within which there are a variety of different moods.

George Lloyd will mostly remembered for his 12 Symphonies, but his compositions include Opera, Choral, Concerto, Piano and Chamber Music. In 2023 the Trustees of Lyrita Nimbus Arts reached an exclusive agreement with The George Lloyd Society to take over the sale, hire, archiving and preservation of all George Lloyd's scores as well as the commercial exploitation of the collection of recordings made by the Society in the 1990s and conducted by the composer. Because George Lloyd's personal attention is a dominating influence on the scores and recordings, which he mostly conducted himself, we have decided to headline this representation the 'Signature Collection'. Scores will be cleaned, and new orchestral parts created, recordings will be reorganised into collectable sets available on CD, Download and Streaming with new notes commissioned from Paul Conway.

When the Arts Council's Welsh Committee approached Grace Williams in the summer of 1959 with the offer of a commission to write a one-act opera, this was an opportunity to realise a long-cherished ambition. For her libretto, the composer turned to the French satirist Guy de Maupassant's savagely funny short story en Famille in which the apparent demise of a cantankerous matriarch uncovers the greed of family members. She wrote her own libretto for The Parlour, embellishing and refining Maupassant's story for dramatic purposes and transferring the setting from the banks of the Seine in France to the living room of a house in a Victorian seaside town. Structured in two scenes framing a brief interlude, the drama unfolds during a summer's day in 1870. The Parlour reveals Grace Williams as a natural composer for the theatre, with a flair for character delineation and development. The fast pace means there is no time for a formal overture and the drama begins without preamble. The compact arias, ensembles, recitatives and choruses arise naturally from the music, which is continuous, and there are no long numbers to inhibit the flow of the narrative. As the composer admitted, 'There's quite a lot to say in a short time. So whatever else I'll be accused of, I hardly think anyone could say that the opera drags'. At it's first performance, The Parlour was given a sustained ovation by an enthusiastic audience and there were some very good press notices. Writing in The Sunday Times, Felix Aprahamian was profuse in his admiration, describing The Parlour as 'hilarious' and 'an undoubted hit', going on to remark that 'the piece progresses with perfect clarity and a fine sense of musical contrast'. He concluded his observations by commenting that 'Miss Williams shows a remarkable feeling for musical proportion in her very first operatic essay'. © Paul Conway

A selection of his commercially released recordings. This very full 2 CD compilation of Coates most popular works is drawn from a 7 CD set 'The Definitive Eric Coates' (REAM.2145) containing all of Eric Coates commercially released recordings. In addition to a full discography the booklet has a 1000 word article on Coates relationship with the Gramophone by Michael Payne.

Philip Cannon's Concertino for piano and strings (1951) dates from his formative years. It was written for the Petersfield Festival, where it was premiered on 27 January 1951 by soloist Joseph Cooper, with the Petersfield Orchestra conducted by Kathleen Merritt. This lively, neo-classical piece has achieved over a thousand performances internationally. Though John Addison's Concertino for piano and orchestra is, for the most part, couched in a light-hearted language, it is the product of a serious, and unfailingly inventive, approach to keyboard and orchestral writing. Speaking of the work to Lesie Ayre of the London Evening News, the composer remarked that, 'it is a real concerto in the full sense of the word I would not be ashamed to show the work to any first-class pianist'. Francis Chagrin maintained an intensely practical and unpretentious attitude towards his own craft, observing that, 'My music is not for first performances - it is just to be played'. His Piano Concerto was first performed by soloist Franz Osborn, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, at an SPNM Experimental Rehearsal held at the Royal College of Music on 4 February 1944. Conversation Piece by John Addison was written in 1958 to a commission from the BBC Concert Orchestra for that year's British Light Music Festival. John Addison felt that, by the late-1950s, too great a divide had opened up between serious and light music: 'Concertgoers think contemporary music is so alarmingly serious that when confronted with a mildly witty turn of phrase, they assume something has gone wrong. I remember the astonished sigh of relief when, in the course of introducing one of my chamber works, I told the audience I would not mind if they smiled'. In Conversation Piece, Addison exploits to the full his talent to amuse and divert.

George Lloyd's opera The Serf was well received in 1938 but then fell into neglect. Despairing of a revival, the composer fashioned two orchestral suites, The Norman March from Act II and Prelude Act II which alongside the Overture for The Serf he published for independent performances in the 1980s. As you would expect from this great English composer, all three works are well-crafted, wonderful to perform and tuneful. George Lloyd who died in 1998 is mostly remembered for his 12 Symphonies, but his compositions include Opera, Choral, Concerto, Piano and Chamber Music. LNA approached GLS earlier in 2023 with a proposal that will see all of the music scores digitized and the entire record archive represented in new compilations, in both physical and digital formats. Going beyond the act of preservation the Trustees of LNA believe that George Lloyd's music is ripe for rediscovery by concert management and music lovers. George Lloyd's music, particularly his operas, won him great praise and popularity before WW2. But as broadcasting and concert life changed direction in the 1960s, his style, which is dramatic, large-scale, richly orchestrated unafraid of a big tune, fell out of favour. We believe that George Lloyd's time has come again and will use the combined resources of the Lyrita Nimbus Arts charity, and Lyrita label, together with the manufacturing, printing publishing and distribution arm of Nimbus Records to support this venture.

Hurlstone's Cello Sonata in D major (1899) was written for the noted cellist and composer May Mukle. In his review of the score, Havergal Brian opined that Hurlstone's sonata 'shows ripe and mature musicianship. The Adagio Lamentoso is unusual in it's sustained eloquence. The slow movement and the lovely final Rondo standing out in a rare and attractive work'. The manuscript of Swinstead's Cello Sonata was discovered by the pianist Clive Williamson, while he was clearing the house of Vivian Langrish and his wife Ruth Harte, who were friends of Felix Swinstead. It is possible that this F major sonata may have been written just before the composer's death and never given a public performance. According to Lionel Handy, Ruth was 'a second study cellist and Swinstead may have thought a run-through, if not a performance, might be possible, but there is no record of any performance nor date of composition as yet'. Doreen Carwithen's Cello Sonatina (1944) draws upon the stringed instrument's sonorous, lyrical qualities. The often striking piano material is crucial to the unfolding narrative, rather than offering mere accompaniment and creates a genuine dialogue between the two protagonists. Bridge's two-movement Cello Sonata was begun in 1913, but not completed until 1917. Bridge always looked fondly upon the Cello Sonata, which has proved to be one of the composer's most popular chamber works and remains the most regularly played of all his substantial pieces for two players.

Gavin Higgins' music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with it's own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It's a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coal mines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with it's sounds, it's colours and it's stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. Almost as soon as he could speak, Gavin was given a cornet to blow and grew up playing in the brass band conducted by his grandfather and populated by most of his family. A scholarship to specialist music school in Manchester and subsequent study at the Royal Northern College of Music meant that he moved on to the orchestral French horn. Now, as a composer chiefly working in the orchestral and opera world, Gavin still writes for brass bands and has even put his two musical traditions on the stage together in an award winning Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra. But the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn - Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish - mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self.

Three pieces for violin and piano were written as individual works and, as such, they can be presented separately or, if given collectively as a suite, played in any order. Busch wrote his Passacaglia for violin and viola in 1939, the score takes the form of a decisive, four-bar theme followed by thirty variants upon it. These mini-variations range widely in character, from trenchant and forceful to airy and smooth. A Memory for cello and piano was written for Elizabeth Poston. Busch subtly conveys the idea of a reminiscence suggested by the title with simple, lightly sketched ideas presented with an air of hazy nostalgia. Eventually, the feeling of distance and reserve created in the opening portion of the work is replaced by a more troubled mood. The music ends in sorrow with a heartfelt, steeply descending sequence for unaccompanied cello followed by the merest hint of the opening material. The Quartet for piano and strings is the most substantial of William Busch's chamber pieces. Although the composer's lyrical gifts are much in evidence, the four movements are also rigorously concise. Considerable dramatic rewards are gained from the creative tension between the music's unforced expressivity and the formal rigour with which Busch's powerful themes are worked out. The Suite for Cello and Piano is among Busch's most searching and variegated instrumental works. In a postwar assessment of the score, The Times' critic noted that it's four pieces 'reveal a sensitive and interesting mind'. Elegy for cello and piano exploits fully the stringed instrument's lyrical qualities and capacity for rich, autumnal colours. The work begins with an extended soliloquy for unaccompanied cello and the cellist continues to preside over the entire opening section, which features only a couple of brief interjections from the piano. © Paul Conway

I met the great pianist Martin Jones as a consequence of writing the Concert Study Wild Cherries and Honeycomb as a test-piece for the Scottish International Piano Competition, circa 1998. Martin heard about this piece from the chairman of the competition jury, Bryce Morrison, and this eventually led to my writing more Concert Studies over the next fifteen years, as well as the other works on this album. © Graham Hair

Despite his facility in playing the violin and the importance he attached to his lessons with Albert Sammons, Lloyd was relatively slow to compose works for his own instrument. It was not until 1970 that Lloyd wrote Violin Concerto No.1, his first piece with a leading role for his own instrument, but this achievement seemed to stir his enthusiasm and during the next seven years he completed a number of pieces for violin and piano, a fully-fledged sonata and a second concerto. The Seven Extracts from 'The Serf' for violin and piano (1974) were published in 2024, and are here recorded for the first time. © Paul Conway

As a violinist, Lloyd was drawn to stringed instruments rather than the keyboard. His wife, Nancy had a very different attitude to the piano, however. Having been brought up listening to records of Alfred Cortot, among other great pianists, she had developed a genuine passion for the instrument. She was always urging her husband to write a piano concerto, but it was not until the early 1960s that those years of persuasion paid off and Lloyd wrote Scapegoat, the first of his series of four piano concertos. Now the composer had overcome his previous aversion to the keyboard, as he put it, 'Suddenly, everything I thought of, I thought in terms of the piano'. From this dramatic change of heart emerged several works for solo piano. © Paul Conway

George Lloyd was very familiar with music for brass from an early age. One of his first musical recollections was listening with rapt attention to a Salvation Army Band with his mother in St Ives. As a student, he attended regularly brass band concerts at London's Crystal Palace, where he heard the premiere of John Ireland's A Downland Suite at the National Band Festival Competition on 1 October 1932. Lloyd played the cornet when serving as a Bandsman in the Royal Marines, giving him invaluable practical experience as an executant within a group of players. His scoring for the brass section in his large-scale works is invariably idiomatic, impressively wrought and indicates a keen understanding of all the instruments' range, character and versatility. Yet, despite all these indications that he was a natural composer of brass band music, he turned to writing music for brass instruments only in the last two decades of his creative life. Though music for brass band was the last major genre Lloyd added to his catalogue of works, his enthusiasm for the medium, once he had embraced it, was unstinting. The wide popularity of his music within the brass band movement was an enduring source of considerable pride and satisfaction for George Lloyd, as he once confessed: 'To realise that the people who are actually doing it, the players themselves... seem to like it, that is what pleases me the most'. © Paul Conway

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.

It is significant that, when Lloyd turned his attention to writing concertante works for the violin, he avoided using full orchestral forces. His sensitivity to issues of balance and scrupulousness in scoring in his operas was matched by his determination that the solo instrument in his concertos should not be overwhelmed by thick orchestral textures. As he put it, 'I don't really like the relationship between the violin and the big modern orchestra. I hate to hear that poor little fiddle being totally swamped'.

By the time Stanford had received a commission from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to write a choral work for them in 1884, he had, at the age of 32, already begun to assert himself as one of Britain's leading composers. The Elegiac Ode was, however, his first mature foray into the world of major British choral festivals. Some of the Elegiac Ode had in fact been sketched three years earlier in 1881, but after the Norwich commission was received, Stanford evidently grasped the opportunity to complete the work in it's entirety in July 1884. The words were taken from the last part of Whitman's elegy, 'When lilacs in the dooryard bloom'd', written in the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination in 1865 (it was a text which Stanford's pupil, Holst, later used for his Ode to Death, composed in the wake of the war in 1919). Taking the seven verses of the burial hymn, Stanford divided his chosen text into four parts, thereby creating a four-movement musical structure more akin to a choral symphony with it's substantial (and thematically related) choral outer movements flanking two shorter inner essays. By the time Stanford had received a commission from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to write a choral work for them in 1884, he had, at the age of 32, already begun to assert himself as one of Britain's leading composers. The Elegiac Ode was, however, his first mature foray into the world of major British choral festivals. Some of the Elegiac Ode had in fact been sketched three years earlier in 1881, but after the Norwich commission was received, Stanford evidently grasped the opportunity to complete the work in it's entirety in July 1884. The words were taken from the last part of Whitman's elegy, 'When lilacs in the dooryard bloom'd', written in the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination in 1865 (it was a text which Stanford's pupil, Holst, later used for his Ode to Death, composed in the wake of the war in 1919). Taking the seven verses of the burial hymn, Stanford divided his chosen text into four parts, thereby creating a four-movement musical structure more akin to a choral symphony with it's substantial (and thematically related) choral outer movements flanking two shorter inner essays. Stanford's large-scale setting of the Te Deum Op. 66 was first sung at the Leeds Festival on 6 October 1898 and it's ambitious, opulent dimensions were clearly intended to be a fitting commemoration of the accession to the throne of Queen Victoria (it's dedicatee) sixty years earlier as well as a tribute to the full-bodied, well-trained Leeds chorus of 350 singers. A particular feature of the Te Deum is the grandeur of much of it's choral writing. Though also dramatic in it's impact, a dominating feature of the Te Deum is it's prominent use of the chorus, and the many fulsome sonorities Stanford was able to draw from the magnificent 'instrument' of the Leeds voices. © Jeremy Dibble

If the first three piano concertos have the heft and communicative power of Lloyd's larger middle-period symphonies, the Fourth has a close affinity to the Ninth Symphony, which was completed the previous year. Both pieces exhibit an impish sense of fun, tempered by profound feelings of yearning and regret. George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large-scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. © Paul Conway

Among his many compositions, Kenneth V. Jones wrote a concerto for string orchestra (1956), a concerto for oboe and strings (1963), The Pollock, an orchestral prelude (1963), O Light Invisible, a cantata for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra (1963), a sonata for solo violin (1967), Dialysis, for violin and harpsichord (1973), Quaquaverse, for saxophone quartet (1979), Paean for organ (1983), three Sinfonias for orchestra, as well as piano works, song cycles, film, play and television scores and church music, including hymns and anthems. The Quintet for Piano and String Quartet, Op.26 (1967) is a compact, finely balanced score in which the keyboard is in constant, purposeful dialogue with the strings and no single player is allowed to dominate the textures for too long. The resolute opening Allegro contains a couple of ear-catching passages where string phrases are repeated hypnotically, but for the most part, this is a vibrant, forthright movement, driven by the composer's characteristically punchy syncopated rhythms. The central Adagio brings a more expansive tempo, while maintaining an intensity of mood established by the opening movement. The outer sections are presided over by a tenacious, repeated-note figure first heard on the viola at the outset, while the central episode is more diverse and adventurous in spirit. The vigorous, lilting Allegro finale revisits material from the previous movements and rounds off the piece in exuberant style.

Among his many compositions, Kenneth V. Jones wrote a concerto for string orchestra (1956), a concerto for oboe and strings (1963), The Pollock, an orchestral prelude (1963), O Light Invisible, a cantata for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra (1963), a sonata for solo violin (1967), Dialysis, for violin and harpsichord (1973), Quaquaverse, for saxophone quartet (1979), Paean for organ (1983), three Sinfonias for orchestra, as well as piano works, song cycles, film, play and television scores and church music, including hymns and anthems. Quinquifid for Brass Quintet (1980) was written for Equale Brass, who premiered the piece in the Purcell Room on 6 December 1980. Quinquifid was first broadcast by the BBC on Radio 3 on 30 December 1981. The structure of this work is built on a notion of five sections, each linked without a break by cadenzas for each of the solo instruments. The opening movement begins with an Andante introduction flecked by flutter-tongued trumpet and moves into a more urgent Allegro section that exploits the lyrical qualities of the tuba to expressive effect. Gradually the music intensifies, building to a powerful climax, before falling away abruptly, paving the way for the next section, a brief duet for the two trumpets, marked 'Shadow Play' in the score. Light and lively, the finale offers flowing interplay between the instruments and brings the score to a confident conclusion.

Because George Lloyd's personal attention is a dominating influence on the scores and recordings - which he mostly conducted himself - we have decided to headline this representation the 'Signature Collection'. Scores will be cleaned, and new orchestral parts created, recordings will be reorganised into affordable sets with new notes commissioned from Paul Conway. All digital platforms will have access to a unified and comprehensive offering from a single source.