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Presto News - 6th June 2011Vaughan Williams’s The Garden of Proserpine |
 Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the most important British composers of the Twentieth Century, but while works like The Lark Ascending and many of the Symphonies enjoy plenty of performances and regular recordings, there is still a significant quantity of the composer’s output which is largely unknown and has never been recorded.  A young Ralph Vaughan Williams The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society was set up in the early 1990s with one of its main objectives being to encourage performances of the composer’s lesser known works. With over 1,000 members signed up from all corners of the world, this went a step further in 2007 when the society started its own record label – Albion Records. They have just released their 7th disc and so far every one has contained at least one world premiere recording. On the new disc it is The Garden of Proserpine and here it receives a warm and sensitive reading from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Paul Daniel. Written in 1899 when the composer was still in his twenties, The Garden of Proserpine was Vaughan Williams’s first attempt at large-scale composition. It is a substantial piece, nearly twenty-five minutes long and scored for soprano soloist, chorus and orchestra. Given that up to this point he had only produced a handful of songs and some chamber pieces, its achievement is even more remarkable. The text is taken from a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne – a poet thought of as rebellious and free-thinking at the time, but with a real mastery of metre and rhyme. Swinburne’s poem about the world of the dead and in particular the antitheistic view that death was the end of all human consciousness was quite shocking when it was first published in 1866. Vaughan Williams’s setting captures the general mood of despair and bitterness of the poem with sombre melodies and slow-moving harmonies. Stylistically you can tell it is Vaughan Williams but it is a little way off his more mature voice, and influences of other composers are more clearly heard – not least Wagner, with his Good Friday Music from Parsifal coming into my mind on more than one occasion. On this new recording the work is coupled with the composer’s symphonic work ‘In Fen and Country’ which although composed only five years later inhabits a much more typical Vaughan Williams sound world. The other major work on the disc is Vaughan Williams’s arrangement of Patrick Hadley’s cantata Fen and Flood – a piece inspired by the 1953 storm which devastated East Anglia and the Low Countries and killed 2,400 people. It is a dramatic work scored for soprano, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra and also receives its world premiere recording here. I found it a terrific piece, with some lovely melodic writing and real dramatic power. These are all very good recordings with excellent soloists, strong choral singing and an orchestra and conductor entirely at home with the music. There are sound samples available via the link below, but unfortunately for The Garden of Proserpine it is a bit like a Bruckner Symphony in that not much happens in the first minute as it starts very quietly and slowly!  One other thing to mention is that, to coincide with the new CD release, the publisher Stainer and Bell are about to release a vocal score of the work. As we now sell sheet music as well, in case anyone is interested you can see full details of it and pre-order it at what seems a very reasonable price here.
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 Vaughan Williams: The Garden of ProserpineJane Irwin (mezzo-soprano), Mary Bevan (soprano) & Leigh Melrose (baritone), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & The Joyful Company of Singers, Paul Daniel |
Chris O'Reilly - chris@prestoclassical.co.uk |
Listen - sound samples available for this itemNew Releases6th June 2011 |
This is just the pick of the recent releases. The New Releases and Future Releases pages are always available for browsing all the new and forthcoming releases. |
 Howells: The Winchester Service & other late worksWinchester Cathedral Choir, Andrew LumsdenHyperion’s previous recordings with Winchester Cathedral Choir are among the jewels in its choral collection. Now the label begins a new relationship with this ancient foundation and its latest director of music, Andrew Lumsden. Their new disc features a composer who was at the centre of the English twentieth-century choral tradition. |
 Miklós Rózsa: Orchestral Works Volume 2BBC Philharmonic, Rumon GambaThis is Volume 2 in the series of orchestral music by Miklós Rózsa. No fewer than four exclusive Chandos artists perform on this release: The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the conductor Rumon Gamba, and soloists Paul Watkins on cello and Jennifer Pike on violin. |
 MacMillan: Choral MusicWells Cathedral Choir, Matthew OwensJames MacMillan is renowned for his highly original yet accessible choral music. His prolific output displays an intrinsic understanding of the human voice and his music will undoubtedly stand the test of time. MacMillan’s work is inseparable from its composer’s committed adherence to Roman Catholicism. A sense of this religious belief imbues much of his work, which seeks to combine the sacred with the everyday. |
 Britten: Suites for cello solo, Nos. 1-3Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)Britten’s three Cello Suites were written over a period of barely a decade for Mstislav Rostropovich, and it was he who gave them their first performances. They are generally regarded as three of the greatest and finest challenges ever to be set a cellist. Daniel Müller-Schott, who had an opportunity to study with Rostropovich, faces up to this challenge with great enthusiasm and gives these memorable performances. |
 Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K626New College Choir Oxford & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Edward HigginbottomThis distinctive recording of Mozart’s last great work can claim to be unique in two defining ways: the use of soloists drawn from the chorus, as in Mozart’s day – including young male singers for the soprano and alto solos – combined with a period orchestra. These are not idle historical gestures. The contemporary virtues of this approach are consistency in the sound-world between chorus and solo ensemble, and homogeneity of style between period ensemble (here the superlative Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and period chorus. |
 Röntgen: Violin ConcertosLiza Ferschtman (violin), Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, David PorcelijnCPO’s Röntgen edition expands this month with a releases of his only two Violin Concertos, performed by Liza Ferschtman, a Dutch violinist much in demand around Europe. |
 Mariss Jansons conducts Lutoslawski, Szymanowski & A. TchaikovskyChor und Symhonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss JansonsThree works that are very close to his heart were brought together by Mariss Jansons for this new CD release. Karol Szymanowski’s Third Symphony, which, in addition to gigantic orchestral forces, also calls for a chorus and a tenor soloist, depicts a fantastic sound painting of an idealized Near East, including the setting of a 13th century Persian text. Witold Lutosławski blends Slavic local colour into his 1954 Concerto for Orchestra, and Alexander Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony was a 2005 commission from Yuri Bashmet and comprises sound-painting choral passages and a significant solo part for the viola. |
 The Sibelius Edition Volume 12 - SymphoniesLahti Symphony Orchestra, Osmo VänskäJune sees the release of the penultimate instalment of BIS’s Sibelius Edition, and here we return to a genre for which he is particularly celebrated, namely the symphonic. |
 BBC Radio 3 CD ReviewSaturday 4th June 2011 |
Building a Library - Beethoven: String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, Op. 74 'Harp' |
 First Choice(as part of the Complete String Quartets)Alban Berg Quartett |
Disc of the Week |
 Liszt: Harmonies Du SoirNelson Freire (piano) |
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