Ex. VAT prices will be applied automatically for non-EU delivery addresses.
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | | .jpg) |
Peter Colman-Wright (baritone), Robin Leggate (tenor), Elizabeth Connell (soprano), Janice Watson (soprano), Sarah Fox (soprano), Alan Opie (baritone), Pamela Helen Stephen (mezzo-soprano) & James Gilchrist (tenor) City of London Sinfonia & Tiffin Boys Choir, Richard Hickox Following the success of his recent performance of the opera at London’s Cadagon Hall, the seasoned Britten performer Richard Hickox has committed the composer’s rarely recorded Owen Wingrave to disc. Only one rival CD recording is available at present. Commissioned by BBC television in 1966, the work is something of a Cinderella among Britten’s operas, despite its imaginative, closely knit score. One possible reason is that it was composed for television rather than the theatre. Like its 1954 predecessor, The Turn of the Screw, Owen Wingrave is based on a ghost story by Henry James. Britten read the story while he was working on The Turn of the Screw, and even then conceived the idea of setting it as an opera. The music employs the relatively spare textures that Britten adopted in his later years. After the concert performance, The Guardian wrote: ‘Any doubts as to its worth, were quashed by this performance, conducted by Richard Hickox, who exposed, often with lethal precision, the moral paradox at the work’s centre. In depicting Owen’s determination to come out to his military family as a pacifist, Britten adopts a fiercely anti-war stance: yet the opera also envisions life as a battlefield, where death is often the price for the preservation of integrity. Hickox drew us through the resulting complexities with passionate subtlety. Ricocheting brass and clattering timpani delineated both Owen’s struggle and the forces of reaction that hem him in, while sensual strings and the sound of Britten’s beloved gamelan conveyed the vision of peace that drives Owen on.’ The Times commented: ‘Hickox and the CLS made every note count, every hiccupping rhythm, each transparent texture. Battle nightmares, sherry being poured: we saw them all, in sound.’ | 
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Vaughan Williams - Choral Worksfrom CDA66420, CDA66655, CDA66511 & CDA66569
Vaughan Williams: | Serenade to Music Elizabeth Connell (soprano), Amanda Roocroft (soprano), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Martyn Hill (tenor), Maldwyn Davies (tenor), Anne Dawson (soprano), Linda
Kitchen (soprano), Alan Opie (baritone), Gwynne Howell (bass), Sir Thomas Allen (baritone), Sarah Walker (mezzo-soprano), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzosoprano) & John Connell (bass) English Chamber Orchestra Fantasia on Christmas Carols Thomas Allen (baritone) English Chamber Orchestra Flos Campi Nobuko Imai (viola) English Chamber Orchestra Five Mystical Songs Sir Thomas Allen (baritone) English Chamber Orchestra Dona Nobis Pacem A Cantata for soprano and baritone soli, chorus and orchestra Judith Howarth (soprano) & Thomas Allen (baritone) Corydon Orchestra Four Hymns for tenor, viola and strings John Mark Ainsley (tenor) & Matthew Souter (viola) Corydon Orchestra O Clap Your Hands (Psalm 47) Lord, Thou has been our refuge Sir Thomas Allen (baritone) The Pilgrim's Progress - A Bunyan Sequence Text and music adapted by Christopher Palmer from the 1942 radio version of The Pilgrim's Progress. Sir John Gielgud, Richard Pasco, Ursula Howells (speakers), Aidan Oliver (treble) The City of London Sinfonia A Song of Thanksgiving Sir John Gielgud (speaker), Lynne Dawson (soprano) & John Scott (organ) The London Oratory Junior Choir Three Choral Hymns Magnificat Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo-soprano), Duke Dobing (flute) & Roger Judd (organ) The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains Bryn Terfel (baritone), Alan Opie (baritone), Adrian Thompson (tenor), Jonathan Best (bass), John Mark Ainsley (tenor) & Linda Kitchen (soprano) The Hundredth Psalm |
Corydon Singers, Matthew Best Issued to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death, this collection is tantalizing: it starts with one of
the best-selling discs in the the catalogue, the Serenade to Music, and includes such favourites as the Five Mystical Songs
and The Hundreth Psalm. There are also two intriguing pairings: in Dona nobis pacem, RVW warns of the impending
doom of WWII, in A song of thanksgiving we hear his moving response to its successful conclusion; in The shepherds of the
delectable mountains we hear an early working of Bunyan’s literary masterpiece, later extensively reworked in the
landmark 1942 BBC radio production of The Pilgrim’s Progress featuring Sir John Gielgud and reprised here, this time in
condensed form. ‘Performances like these don’t come along very often; each one is an absolute winner, and with rich, atmospheric recording quality the satisfaction is of a very special quality’ (CD Review) |
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & City of London Sinfonia, George Guest ‘This is another quality disc from Chandos which offers beautiful performances of these attractive French choral works’ (Canberra Times) | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
James Bowman, Lillian Watson, John Graham-Hall, Henry Herford, Della Jones, Jill Gomez & Donald Maxwell City of London Sinfonia & Trinity Boys’ Choir, Richard Hickox | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox "Keenly felt, emotional reading…performance is passionate… " BBC Music Magazine | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Vaughan Williams - Christmas Music
Sarah Fox (soprano) & Roderick Williams (baritone) The Joyful Company of Singers & City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Simpson - The Complete Symphonies
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & City of London Sinfonia, Vernon Handley & Matthew Taylor ‘One of the outstanding recording projects of our time … this Hyperion series deserves to stand as a monument while other more superficially glamorous ventures rise and fall around it. If it does not do so, and if it does not eventually force Simpson’s breakthrough into the orchestral repertoire, there will truly be no justice’ (Gramophone) | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | An opera in two scenes
Roderick Williams, Yvonne Kenny, Claire Rutter, Jean Rigby, Anne Collins, Robin Leggate, Blake Fischer City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | The Cambridge Singers Christmas Album
The Cambridge Singers, City of London Sinfonia, John Rutter | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Rutter - Three Musical Fables
The Cambridge Singers, The King's Singers, City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |
|
Gramophone Magazine
Building a Library
