Julian Lloyd Webber

Eric Whitacre follows the Grammy-winning success of his debut Decca album, Light and Gold (2743209), with Water Night, a brand new album that features no less than seven World Premiere Recordings. Light and Gold was awarded ‘Best Choral Performance’ in February 2012 at the 54th Grammy Awards for Whitacre’s first recording as both composer and conductor. This second disc for Decca juxtaposes music written as a young composer alongside brand new repertoire, both choral and orchestral, displaying the different influences and styles of Whitacre.

The Eric Whitacre Singers positively shimmer on these world premiere recordings of “Alleluia” and “Oculi Omnium”, two of the brand new works alongside one of the greats of his oeuvre, “Her Sacred Spirit Soars”. “Equus” is played by the full forces of the London Symphony Orchestra.

By way of contrast, “The River Cam” is a beautiful, pastoral piece that demonstrates Nevada-born Whitacre’s absorption of the works of Elgar and Vaughan Williams during his time in the UK as a visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. It was written at the invitation of the distinguished cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber, to mark his 60th birthday in 2011, who also gives the performance here.

An unexpected gem of the album is a setting of Goodnight Moon, the multi-million selling American children’s book by Margaret Wise Brown (Harper Collins). Written for soprano and strings, this tender piece is performed by Hila Plitmann, a Grammy-winning artist with great commitment to contemporary music.

The title track, “Water Night”, is one of Eric Whitacre’s most performed works, heard on this album performed by the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Frederick Delius’s beautiful songs show his extraordinary gift for melody. John Ireland admired Delius enormously and his songs are inspired by a wide variety of literature, including his hugely popular setting of John Masefield’s Sea Fever. Renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber celebrates both composers’ remarkable melodic gifts in these sensitive arrangements, and pianist John Lenehan has received great acclaim for his Naxos recordings of Ireland’s complete piano music.

This recording revives a tradition which was common at the beginning of the last century, arranging the best of vocal music for instruments, of which the singing voice of the cello is one of the best suited. The performing cast here is something of a dream team. Julian Lloyd Webber’s large following will take little persuasion to explore his playing on this beautiful CD, and he is joined both by his cellist wife Jiaxin Cheng and Ireland expert John Lenehan, whose recordings include the Gramophone awardwinning Michael Nyman Piano Concerto (8554168).

Julian Lloyd Webber is one of today’s leading cellists. He has given the premières of more than fifty new works for cello and has inspired new compositions from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold and Joaquín Rodrigo to James MacMillan and Philip Glass. His partnership with John Lenehan began in the mid-1970s and they have since given recitals together all over the world. “…the doyen of British cellists” The Strad

Affirming Michael Nyman’s status as an innovator in orchestral music, these three concertos demonstrate a bold re-interpretation of musical traditions. Illustrating Nyman’s inventive approach to timbre in the Double Concerto for Saxophone, Cello and Orchestra, and including the virtuosic Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings, this collection concludes with the Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, a dramatic and tumultuous conflict between instruments.

Even Queen Victoria declared herself amused by The Gondoliers, a work of irresistibly sunny exuberance. As Gilbert wrote to Sullivan: “It gives one the chance of shining through the twentieth century [and beyond!] with a reflected light.” Though set in Venice, the operetta satirises both the snobbery and growing republicanism of 1880s Britain in a delicious imbroglio centred on two gondolier brothers who unexpectedly become joint rulers of the kingdom of Barataria.

Following his May release of Song of Songs (SIGCD162), composer Patrick Hawes returns with a new collection of works that celebrate the heart and soul of the British Landscape - with performances that bring together leading performers including Elin Manahan Thomas and Julian Lloyd Webber. Patrick Hawes debut album Blue in Blue stormed into the classical charts in its first weeks of release in 2004, and became the fastest and highest new entrant to the Classic FM Hall of Fame - leading to his subsequent appointment as composer in residence for the radio station. He has firmly established himself as one of England's most popular living composers.