The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar is a two-part work for voices and orchestra composed in 1900 to text by John Henry Newman. Widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and by some his masterpiece, 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.

REVIEW:

This strong performance is apparently the first to use historically appropriate instruments. The trombone, just to give the listener an idea, was owned by Elgar. Tenor Nicky Spence, in the lead role, offers a rich, serious performance. McCreesh’s interpretation focuses on the chorus, placing the work in the grand English oratorio tradition.

— AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Vasari Singers is one of the UK’s leading chamber choirs with a series of acclaimed albums released on Naxos. Music on a Christmas Morning presents an uplifting seasonal programme including the world premiere recording of Helena Paish’s beautiful setting of words by the youngest of the Brontë sisters. Vasari Singers’ previous Christmas release A Winter’s Light is available on Naxos 8.573030.

This is a Christmas album that has a sense of place; clearly identifying the Chorale as both American and from a border state with Mexico; and something for everyone whether they prefer serious or light festive fare. There is Mexican influence in the repertoire choices; which include Catalan folksongs as well as Hispanic Renaissance music. It includes a commission by Cecilia McDowall; written for Christmas 2021; new arrangements of all tracks and also some contemporary Christmas favourites such as Sleigh Ride and Jingle Bells.

This marks the Chorale’s return to recording following an 8-year hiatus; and their first album with Signum Records. “Festive repertoire plays an important role in the performance cycle of every choir; and it felt fitting to begin our journey with a Christmas recording that established a sense of place for the ensemble: we chose to record repertoire that is all American or Hispanic in origin; save for the newly-commissioned piece by Cecilia McDowall that was written to mark the centenary of our home in Phoenix; Trinity Cathedral. Our aim is to translate the warmth of Arizona into our sound; to convey the rhetoric of every text; and celebrate the good health of the American Choral Tradition.” - Christopher Gabbitas

Scott Robert Shaw's debut "The English Tenor" takes us on a beautifully performed journey through a who's who of great English composers and their vocal works. The names Ivor Gurney, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter are synonymous with English Song, and a Golden Age of British music. The wide variety of accompanying instruments and artists, the broad range of text settings and the mix of cornerstone works of the repertoire alongside lesser-known cycles make "The English Tenor" a thrilling debut album.

A product of the English church music tradition, Australian born Scott Robert Shaw has been performing works in this oeuvre since childhood. Whether on the operatic or oratorio stage, as an ensemble singer or soloist, his deep cultural roots to the British music world are laid bare for all to see. This deeply personal album stands as testament to his background, and as a homecoming to his earliest steps as artist.

Beginning his career and training as a boy soprano at the St George’s Cathedral Perth Choir, Scott attended the McDonald College of the Performing Arts in Sydney, studying music and acting in the Stanislawksy/Laban tradition, awarded a full scholarship for Excellence in Performance. He then attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and was given the Most Exceptional Contribution to the Arts award from Wesley College, University of Sydney. In London he continued his studies with the English National Opera’s Baylis Programme for young performers and was regularly engaged to perform as a recitalist and operatic tenor in festivals and opera companies in both the United Kingdom and France. He then completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied Early Music and Classical Singing, and now based in Düsseldorf, is regularly engaged as a soloist in The Netherlands and Germany, with a particular focus on Bach oratorios and Evangelist roles in the Passions.

What would singing be without words? When you combine wonderful poetry with exquisite music, the result is magical. In a rare break from the sacred collections they are famed for, this album from The Sixteen features a whole program of secular music devoted to English partsongs. From Stanford’s cycle of Eight Partsongs based on the sparing yet infectious poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge to Bridges’ lyrically descriptive writing in Finzi’s Seven Poems of Robert Bridges and Imogen Holst’s six idyllic partsongs Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow using verses by John Keats, each setting captures the mood of the poem brilliantly.

Soprano Mary Bevan writes: In 1975, the original Bevan Family Choir released their debut album on vinyl, featuring an eclectic programme of sacred choral works, Welsh folk songs, and piano music. The Choir consisted of 11 of the 14 Bevan siblings and was conducted by their father, Roger. Later on the Choir was taken over by the second eldest son, David, who was to go on to become Assistant Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral. The musical tradition continued to flourish within the family until, in 2013, some of the second generation of cousins decided to create their own version of the family choir, naming themselves the Bevan Family Consort so as to distinguish them from their parents’ generation. The Consort has since ranged in size from 15-22 of the 53 first cousins. To honour David and the influence he had over us all as musicians, this disc consists of music that was introduced to us by him during his years at the Holy Redeemer Church and that have since become beloved by us as a choir.

REVIEW:

The Bevan Family Consort are particularly good at strongly textured works such as Croce’s In spirito humilitatis, tinged with Venetian monumentalism, or Holst’s Nunc dimittis with its ecstatic ending. This last piece was not discovered until 1979, some 45 years after Holst’s death. Other rarities include the Dignare me by Fernando de las Infantas, apparently a Spanish nobleman working in Rome – so obscure as to be practically confidential. The works with intricate polyphony are pleasingly performed, though in the Kyrie and Gloria of Victoria’s Missa Vidi speciosam the upper voices are a little sharp and the overall acoustic seems rather distant. Breath control and phrasing is always musical and is apparent even in the plainsongs (Ave Maria). The most beautiful work here is Alonso Lobo’s Versus est in luctum. The voices of the Bevan Consort are slightly too disparately coloured to match the magical poise of this work achieved by the group Tenebrae (also on Signum) which shares an album with Victoria’s Requiem.

-- BBC Music Magazine

For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.

REVIEW:

Seventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Charlie Siem returns with a new recording of Violin Sonatas, accompanied by his regular recital partner Itamar Golan – featuring Vaughan Williams' Violin Sonata in A Minor and Grieg's Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13. Charlie Siem is one of today’s foremost young violinists, with such a wide-ranging diversity of cross-cultural appeal as to have played a large part in defining what it means to be a true artist of the 21st century. Siem has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Bergen Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Czech National Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with top conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Edward Gardner, Zubin Mehta, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Libor Pešek and Yuri Simonov. International festival appearances to date include Spoleto, St. Moritz, Gstaad, Bergen, Tine@Munch, Festival Internacional de Santa Lucía, and the Windsor Festival.

Edith Sitwell’s invitation to William Walton to collaborate on an innovative, revolutionary new work came at a critical moment in the young composer’s career, and Façade proved to be his first great success. The peerless combination of a peculiarly English dry wit, genuine pathos and superlative technical skill remains an extraordinary achievement. Sitwell’s verses conjure a satirical and poignant world of bourgeois late-Victorian England, while Walton’s settings unfailingly enhance and enrich the texts in a work in which words and music are unquestionably of equal importance. This release includes the first recording of Small Talk (1922) and three numbers first performed in 1977 but subsequently rejected by the composer.

REVIEW:

JoAnn Falletta is to be congratulated for bringing us Walton’s revisit of the piece in 1978 when he was 76, featuring eight more poems (the work’s original subtitle, “An Entertainment,” became “A Further Entertainment:). Falletta also includes some additional material, beginning with “Small Talk” from 1922 and three numbers from 1977, “Daphne,” “The White Owl,” and “The Last Galop”—the late ones have never been recorded before.

The special charm of this release is to be found in the acting skills of the narrators, now expanded from two to three. Falletta realized that Sitwell’s poems contain actual characters who could be brought vividly to life, and she has chosen her cast well. Hila Plitman is extremely versatile, sounding at times Russian or German in her delivery (she is actually Israeli). Fred Child is a vocally nimble PBS narrator, and well-regarded bass-baritone Kevin Deas comes across richly with an arch demeanor suggestive of the childlike nature of some of the poems. The result is extremely satisfying. Of course, the performance necessarily emerges sounding less British, less reserved and less formal, but we Americans have our own silly Ogden Nash tradition, and Façade is none the worse for a more extroverted American approach. Jo Ann Falletta and her Virginians play with sass and spark.

-- Fanfare

Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of Britain’s most illustrious composers, and this specially curated selection of works demonstrates the sheer breadth of his achievement. As a major 20th century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in critically acclaimed recordings (‘A clear top recommendation’ wrote Gramophone of A Sea Symphony). Popular orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor shows the composer’s high standing in the English choral tradition.

REVIEW:

More Vaughan Williams—and very welcome, too. While admirers may favour other performances, every take here on the composer’s exquisite scores is more than competitive. This curated selection of works is a measure of RVW’s achievements. As a major 20th-century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in much-praised recordings, while winning orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor is a solid addition.

-- Classical CD Source (Barry Forshaw)

From Arturo Toscanini and Sir John Barbirolli to Riccardo Muti and Antonio Pappano in our own time, Italian-heritage performers have often brought special qualities of sympathy and understanding to Edward Elgar’s (1857-1934) music. Now comes a new recording made in the ‘boot’ of southern Italy, lending Mediterranean warmth and passion to a trio of Elgarian masterpieces. The Sicilian-born cellist Giovanni Sollima has made well-received albums for Brilliant Classics of music by Offenbach (94475) and by his father Eliodoro Sollima (96287). His latest recording, made at the Teatro Politeama in the one-time ‘lace capital’ of Europe, Catanzaro, illuminates one of the core works of the cello literature with an affecting sense of line and sensitivity to the melancholy introversion which colors every bar of the Concerto composed by Elgar in the wake of the First World War. Twenty years earlier, Elgar’s reputation was secured with audiences across Europe and America through the whirlwind success of his “Enigma” Variations. The stoic beauty of ‘Nimrod’, the gentle wit of ‘Dorabella’ and the nervous excitement and pride of the autobiographical finale spoke directly to listeners who would never know the composer or his ‘friends pictured within’. The agitated, impassioned voice of Elgar in the Variations belonged to its end-of-Empire time and place, orchestrated with a mastery which would soon draw the admiration of Richard Strauss and many more musicians on the other side of the English Channel. Even that quintessential expression of Englishness, the first of five marches which Elgar collected under the Shakesperean banner of “Pomp and Circumstance” and later repurposed to set ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ for the finale of his Coronation Ode, won the composer standing ovations when he conducted it in concerts across mainland Europe. Under the affectionate baton of their music director Filippo Arlia, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria interpret Elgar’s music with a sensitivity and extroversion worthy of the composer.

This second volume of Trombone Travels (Volume 1 is on 8.574093) continues with Matthew Gee’s exploration of three great cycles of early 20th-century British song. Elgar’s Sea Pictures evoke lullaby and turbulence alike, Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel chart a wanderer’s lonely journey through the landscape, and in Songs of the Sea Stanford’s music embraces both the somber and the exhilarating, with Gee joined by a trombone chorus to emulate the male voice choir. Throughout the recital Gee lavishes coloristic effects, the use of mutes, and subtle inflections that reinforce the trombone’s unique ability to mimic vocal techniques.

The All-Star Orchestra gives you a front row seat to the world’s greatest music, performed by top players chosen from over 30 great American orchestras, and conducted by Gerard Schwarz. The programs feature complete performances of popular masterpieces and world premieres of new works by leading American composers. Filmed in High-Definition with multiple cameras in and around the orchestra, the All-Star Orchestra celebrates the symphonic experience in the 21st century. The first work on this release is Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The score is dedicated to “my friends pictured within,” and each Variation represents a real person. As he was finishing the work, Elgar wrote: “The enigma I will not explain- it’s ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture.” A musical mystery of great beauty and endless fascination. The next piece is Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The perennial family favorite showcases- one by one- all the instruments of the orchestra. Next is Alan Hovhaness’ Symphony No. 2, opus 132 “Mysterious Mountain.” The composer wrote: “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual world.” Finally is Eugene Goossens’ Jubilee Variations. This is a world premiere video recording of this unpublished 1944 work created by Eugene Goossens with contributions from ten composer friends, including Aaron Copland, Howard Hanson, William Schumann, and more.

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.

In April, the United Kingdom celebrated the birthday of the longest serving monarch in British history. This release is the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations. Some of Britain’s most popular artists and ensembles have gathered together for this two-disc set, which includes patriotic anthems and popular tunes. Musicians include Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, The Band of H.M. Royal Marines, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

These composers were all affected by the carnage of World War I, and their elegiac music expresses regret and lost innocence, love won and lost, sacrifice and death. George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, conceived as an epilogue to his Housman song cycles, encapsulates the poet’s sense of life’s transience. Ivor Gurney was both shot and gassed in 1917, and The Trumpet pleads with mankind to set aside the folly of war. Heard here in a new completion, Gerald Finzi’s Requiem da Camera mourns the death of his mentor Ernest Farrar and those of other fallen artists, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy recalls lost friends with an intense and magical nostalgia.

The Emory Symphonic Winds, comprised of members of the Emory Wind Ensemble and the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, are American leaders in the commissioning of new music. Bruce Broughton’s In the World of Spirits was dedicated to the ensemble and is a work of action, dynamism and electric physicality. Christmas carols and hymns are explored by Gustav Holst while Jennifer Higdon charts the intangible beauty of music itself. Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music is a classic of symphonic band writing: rich, colorful and sonorous.