Dutton Epoch

The unplayed early works of Ralph Vaughan Williams have been a tantalising might-have-been for lovers of RVW’s music. Now, building on the success of their recording of the impressive Heroic Elegy & Triumphal Epilogue (CDLX 7237), Dutton Epoch couple world premiere recordings of RVW’s delightful Serenade in A minor (1898) and the Bucolic Suite of 1900. These tuneful discoveries are presented together with cherishable unknown scores from his maturity. David Matthews completed and orchestrated the slow movement of the unfinished Cello Concerto that Vaughan Williams was writing for Casals in the 1940s as the haunting Dark Pastoral, championed here by cellist Guy Johnston, whilst the orchestral suite from Vaughan Williams’ 1949 choral setting Folk Songs of the Four Seasons gives us a succession of delightful tunes.

John McCabe's innate sympathy with the natural world stretches, in this CD, from high summer in England, via the deserts of Arabia, to the majestic mysteries of the sub-tropical rainforests of Australia, with their buzzing insects and strange birdcalls. Les martinets noirs is the French name for swifts. McCabe describes them as “acrobatic Pucks of the air,” adding that one of his annual delights in summer is to watch them wheeling about in the stratosphere, and then swooping down around trees and chimney pots. The swifts’ screaming call, like children at a fairground, seems to suggest sheer joy in movement, and it is a sad moment when summer begins to wane and one looks into the sky for the swifts only to find they are there no more. Violin duo Retorica (Harriet Mackenzie and Philippa Mo) excel as the acrobatic swifts, while Angela Whelan personifies the spirit of the rainforest in Rainforest II. In Rainforest I, a brilliant chamber group is joined by John McCabe on piano in a large-scale work redolent of the sights and sounds of the rainforests of Queensland. They, and the handpicked Orchestra Nova, perform superbly under the sympathetic baton of George Vass in this CD, which is rounded off with the short string orchestra work, Caravan, inspired by the sight of a caravan approaching in the Arabian desert.

World premiere recordings

Recorded: Henry Wood Hall, London, 22-23 February 2012

Following the remarkable success of Victor Sangiorgio’s recording of Benjamin Godard’s delightful First Piano Concerto for Dutton Epoch, we now have Godard’s even more tuneful Second Concerto of 1893 and the colourful Fantaisie Persane (1894), also for piano and orchestra, both of which are essential listening for Godard fans. Conductor Martin Yates completes the programme with orchestral music from two of Godard’s operas – the powerful overture to Les Guelfes of 1882 and the orchestral suites from Jocelyn (1887), until now only remembered for the enchanting Berceuse, here played by Aleksei Kiseliov in its version for cello and orchestra.

Includes world premiere recordings.

Recorded: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 17-18 May 2012

George Vass conducts the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, the Ulster Orchestra and Orchestra Nova in Dutton Epoch’s fifth CD devoted entirely to the music of Cecilia McDowall. The featured works, all recent and receiving their world premiere recording, range widely from sultry settings for soloists baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and violinist Tamás Kocsis of darkly evocative poems by Seán Street celebrating the tango, to a lively and inventive orchestral response to a painting by J M W Turner depicting a broad gauge engine steaming across Maidenhead Viaduct. Also included in this richly diverse programme is an atmospheric choral tribute to the Shipping Forecast and an evocative depiction for strings of bridges in Central Europe, London and New York. McDowall’s inherent lyricism and sense of poetry illuminates every item on a CD that will be an indispensable purchase for this directly communicative composer’s many existing admirers, and will surely win her a substantial number of new followers. George Vass has a longstanding and distinguished association with McDowall’s music, which pays dividends here in performances of great authority and insight.

World premiere recordings.

Recorded: Ulster Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 15 September 2011 and St Silas the Martyr Church, Kentish Town, London, 4 February 2012

George W Chadwick (1854-1931) was a leading American composer of his day. Conductor Keith Lockhart explores unrecorded repertoire by Chadwick – the delightful, affirmative Pastoral Prelude of 1890 written when Chadwick was 36, the Shelley-inspired ‘elegiac overture’ Adonais of 1899 and the gorgeous, impressionistic symphonic poem Cleopatra of 1904 with its “lush and amorous” tune for Cleopatra and “big clashing battle scene.” Coupling these works is the Sinfonietta in D major of 1904, effectively the composer’s fifth symphony, presented here in its first CD recording. This is immediately approachable lyrical music, with one of Chadwick’s most memorable melodies in the scherzo of the Sinfonietta.

World premiere recordings.

In this attractively priced 2-CD boxed set reissue, Dutton Epoch has repackaged their superb recordings of the chamber music of York Bowen as a fine survey of Bowen’s wind chamber music and his trios. “Superb chamber works in outstanding performances,” wrote one critic when these recordings first appeared. The glorious Horn Quintet and fine Horn Sonata played by Stephen Stirling are highlights, but the Sonatas for flute, oboe and clarinet are cherishable too, while the two trios (Rhapsody Trio and Trio in Three Movements) are consummately satisfying neo-romantic music. As a critic remarked: “Bowen is never afraid to write a good tune.”

Previously released on Dutton Epoch CDLX 7129 and 7115