Dove: There was a Child

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It all plays to Dove's trademark strengths: the young choirs draw on his community music prowess and his approachable idiom shows his willingness to refract a multiplicity of influences..In this... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2013, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 2nd Jul 2012
Catalogue No: SIGCD285
Label: Signum
Length: 50 minutes

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Dove: There was a Child

Work length50:50

$11.00

$15.40

$19.25

Toby Spence, Joan Rodgers, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus, CBSO Children's Chorus
Simon Halsey

I Am the Song / Birth

Track length6:57

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Childhood

Track length4:52

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

A Song About Myself

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

From All the Jails the Boys and Girls

Track length2:33

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Over the Fence

Track length2:02

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

All Shod With steel

Track length3:27

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Romance

Track length4:22

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

New Worlds / High Flight

Track length11:32

$2.00

$2.80

$3.50

There Was a Child

Track length11:49

$2.00

$2.80

$3.50

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Jonathan Dove wrote 'There Was a Child' as a tribute to a friend’s son who died tragically young. Filled with both joyous celebration and heartfelt emotion, it’s a big, warm-hearted modern masterpiece in the spirit of Britten and Vaughan Williams – following in an evergreen English tradition and featuring the combined forces of the CBSO and CBSO Chorus, Youth Chorus and Junior Chorus with soloists Joan Rodgers and Toby Spence.

Reviews

April 2013

It all plays to Dove's trademark strengths: the young choirs draw on his community music prowess and his approachable idiom shows his willingness to refract a multiplicity of influences..In this live performance of its premiere, conductor Simon Halsey's CBSO forces savour the music's immediacy.

4th August 2012

[Rodgers and Spence are] unashamedly emotional and soul-baring, the lion’s share falls to the choruses, with radiant contributions from the CBSO’s various youth affiliates...There Was a Child is a major addition to the choral repertoire. Easy on the ear as well as uplifting, it deserves to be taken up by orchestras and choral societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

November 2012

This live recording…could hardly be more powerful or evocative, with sharp definition of the different textures, choral and orchestral, with children’s voices most moving of all. It would be surprising if Dove's touching inspiration did not inspire local choral societies to give it regular airings, encouraged by this fine recording.

September 2012

This is a live recording of an astonishingly assured performance...One might have preferred a less operatic voice than that of Joan Rodgers in this work, but this fine singer's performance is nonethless a most affecting one. Toby Spence has more to do, and he is ardent and passionate.

October 2012

this is a significant work, one of the most important works I have heard in the last decade. I was very touched by the music and the performance.

Offer,Dove: There was a Child

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