british song | SOMM Recordings

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Search Results for “british song ” – Page 3

Piano Quintets by David Matthews and Dmitri Shostakovich

Villiers String Quartet (James Dickenson, Tamaki Higashi violins, Carmen Flores viola, Nick Stringfellow cello) with Martin Cousin, piano

First Recording of Piano Quintet Op. 92 by David Matthews
Piano Quintet Op. 57 by Dmitri Shostakovich
Recorded live during a concert at Turner Sims, Southampton

“Martin, James, Tamaki, Carmen, Nick — thank you all for a superb recording, full of warmth and passion. I’m absolutely delighted.” (David Matthews to Martin Cousin and the Villiers String Quartet).

This new release brings an exciting world premiere recording to the SOMM catalogue – the Piano Quintet Op. 92 by David Matthews coupled with an ideal companion piece, the Piano Quintet by Dmitri Shostakovich. David Matthews wrote his Piano Quintet in 2004 as an engagement present for his wife Jenifer, so in his view, its overall happy mood is appropriate.

A piano recital by Alexander Karpeyev of music by 12 Savilian composers

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the first commercial release of Composers at the Savile Club, pianist Alexander Karpeyev’s vivid and varied recital celebrating the 150th anniversary of the venerable London club.

Devised by Karpeyev and Jeremy Barlow (who will celebrate his 60th year as a Savile member in 2020 and also provides informative booklet notes) the recital includes music for solo piano by 11 leading Savile members to chart the development of British music from late romanticism to modernism – and back again.

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Vaughan Williams – A Birthday Garland, a recording of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan’s popular 2022 concert tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams originally marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Curating a “fantasy birthday party concert” in tribute to “the grand-daddy of 20th-century English song”, Williams has assembled pieces by RVW and 18 fellow composers. The result is a wide-ranging celebration of the rich variety of English song over a century and more that pays tribute to Vaughan Williams’ influence with songs inspired by poets ranging from Shakespeare and Tennyson to W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman.

SOMM Recordings explores one of the most significant partnerships in 20th-century British music with Façades, a disc of piano-accompanied songs and music for four-hand piano by William Walton and Constant Lambert. The two shared a friendship of nearly 30 years until Lambert’s death in 1951, aged 45.

Façades takes its title from Walton’s era-defining “entertainment”, heard here in arrangements for four-hand piano of its two orchestral Suites by Lambert – regarded by Walton as the definitive reciter of Edith Sitwell’s nonsense verses.

Remembering Kathleen Ferrier: A collection of German Lieder and British songs, including 19 previously unpublished tracks: 1947-1952, with Bruno Walter, Gerald Moore and Frederick Stone. Kathleen Ferrier’s legacy of recordings has been well-known and widely-admired for over 60 years. So it seems amazing that, after so long, a treasury of previously unpublished and little-circulated BBC broadcasts is now being released. In typical fashion, SOMM leads the way in remembering great composers and artists of the past and Kathleen Ferrier is one of the most divinely gifted among them.

April Fredrick, soprano
Mark Bebbington, piano

The Songs of John Ireland form an important part of his output and are highly regarded by professional singers who appreciate the lyrical contours of his melodies, the sensitivity of his word settings and the wide variety of moods they encompass.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce 17 world premiere recordings of Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty in a ravishing recital by one of today’s most exciting young partnerships – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and pianist Christopher Glynn.

Although best known today as a composer of orchestral music, Hamilton Harty was also one of the most accomplished accompanists of his generation, forming especially notable partnerships with the sopranos Agnes Nicholls and Elsie Swinton. It prompted, in turn, his increasing activity as an accomplished song writer.

Sally Silver, Soprano; Richard Bonynge, piano

SOMM’s exploration of the byways of British Music continues with another wonderful discovery – Songs by William Vincent Wallace.

Conductor Richard Bonynge who partners Sally Silver in Wallace’s charming drawing room ballads should take the credit for their discovery. He writes:

“My love affair with William Wallace began many years ago. In pre-television days when my parents, my aunts and I used to make music frequently in the evenings and several songs of Wallace were to be found among the stacks of old music. Perhaps because of my Irish heritage I was drawn to the Irish composers and I eventually recorded Wallace’s beautiful opera Lurline and that led me to investigate the songs. Wallace was a superb melodist and I found it a shame that so much of his music was forgotten. I thank David Grant in Ireland and Rosemary Tuck, both great Wallace scholars, for helping me with further researches.”

The collection of music on this enjoyable disc is either arranged from original folk sources or originally composed for soprano and guitar. It covers a somewhat surprisingly wide-ranging degree of expressive content for female voice and the six-stringed acoustic guitar. In this way, we are drawn into a more personal, intimate mode of expression, which speaks to a small, select, group of listeners, and which, in its natural mode returns to its folk-based roots.

Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choice/Paul Spicer

There has been renewed interest in the music of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford recently and with the kind support of the Stanford Society, SOMM now turns the spotlight on Stanford’s Partsongs in the second of a series of recordings with the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir who have become one of Britain’s best choral groups in recent years, under the direction of Paul Spicer.

Stanford’s church music as well as the orchestral and chamber music are well represented on disc. Some of his secular songs have, in the past, been performed and recorded yet his 60-or-so partsongs are far less well known.

This is the first CD fully devoted to Stanford’s partsongs. In addition, the beautifully crafted eight Partsongs Op. 119 set to poems by Mary Coleridge (The Witch, Farewell My Joy, The Bluebird, The Train, The inkbottle, The Swallow, Chillingham, My heart in thine), appear on CD as a complete set for the very first time. SOMM’s recording also contains 9 Songs, which are premiere recordings (Diaphenia, Corydon Arise, A Dirge , Peace Come Away, To Chloris, On a hill, Like Desert Woods, To his flocks, A lover’s ditty, Praised be Diana).

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Search Results for “british song ” – Page 3

Piano Quintets by David Matthews and Dmitri Shostakovich

Composers at the Savile Club

A piano recital by Alexander Karpeyev of music by 12 Savilian composers

Vaughan Williams: A Birthday Garland

Façades: Music by William Walton and Constant Lambert

Kathleen Ferrier Remembered

Earth’s Call

Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty

Songs by William Vincent Wallace

Spanish Songs for Soprano & Guitar

Partsongs by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford

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Search Results for “british song ” – Page 3

A piano recital by Alexander Karpeyev of music by 12 Savilian composers

For All The Latest News

Get Social

Contact

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience.For a complete overview of the cookies used, see our cookie policy.

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