Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.)
Milford’s compositions fall into three main periods – apprenticeship, maturity, and what one might call ‘deeper maturity with experimentation’ – which can be identified with stages in his life.
This CD showcases piano music and songs from across four decades of Milford’s prolific and varied career, providing examples of all three periods of his musical development.
The youthful expectation and promise of the 1920s is captured here in My Lady’s Pleasure – exquisite folk dances for piano.
The happy maturity Milford found in the 1930s, shown in the more complex stylistic development of Prelude, Air and Finale The darkness that descended upon Milford in the 1940s and ’50s, brought on by war and personal tragedy, culminated in his eventual suicide in 1959 – a period represented on this CD by the moving Swan Songs.
Robin Milford: My Lady's Pleasure
I. Pastorale
II. Gavotte
III. Jig
Robin Milford: Four Hardy Songs
No. 2. The Colour
No. 4. Tolerance
Robin Milford: Cradle Song
Cradle Song
Robin Milford: Daybreak
Daybreak
Robin Milford: Reputation Square
I. Matthew's and Welch's
II. Reputation Square
III. George's and the New Wells Hornpipe
III. Trim the French
IV. Jack in his Trousers
V. Jupiter in the Clouds
Robin Milford: 4 Songs
No. 1. So Sweet Love Seemed
No. 2. Elegy
No. 4. Love on my Heart
Robin Milford: 4 Seasonable Songs
No. 2. Summer. Pleasure It Is
No. 4. Winter. This Endris Night
Robin Milford: Prelude, Air and Finale, "on a well-known mordent"
I. Prelude
II. Air
III. Finale
Robin Milford: Swan Songs
No. 1. Song of St Mary the Virgin
No. 2. The Song of Simeon
No. 3. Idlness
No. 4. Christmas Day
No. 5. In Cornwall
No. 6. Expectans expectavi
No. 7. The Holy Tide
No. 8. The Glance
No. 9. Sleep
Robin Milford: Jenifer's Jingle
Jenifer's Jingle
Robin Milford: Days and Moments
Days and Moments: II. Autumn: No. 4. An Epitaph
16th May 2008
**
“Listening to this collection, in which simplistic piano music is mingled with settings of Hardy, Blake and Robert Bridges, it's hard to pin down Milford's style, which often seems as if it has been deliberately simplified to make the music accessible to amateur performers.”
2010
“The piano works so deftly essayed by Raphael Terroni on this useful issue date from the 1920s and '30s – a happy period in Milford's life, which was soon to be blighted by the death (in a road accident) of his beloved five-year-old son Barnaby, followed by poor health, crippling selfdoubt and three suicide attempts. Reputation Square is a deliciously poised arrangement of a set of six hornpipes. Finer still are the bright-eyed Jenifer's Jingle (sic), ruminative and pastoral My Lady's Pleasure and the Prelude,Air and Finale, the latter a highly inventive, rewardingly serene and (above all) subtly integrated triptych which suggests that exploration of some of Milford's as yet unrecorded largescale compositions might prove beneficial. Although the influence of Finzi and Warlock is inescapable, the strongest of Milford's song-settings – notably 'The Colour' (the second of the Four Hardy Songs from 1939) and the unpublished set of nine Swan Songs (1948-51) – possess a frequently captivating melodic charm and directness of expression to which many will rightly respond, especially when contralto Phillida Bannister sings with such infectious commitment and tangible projection. Terroni, too, accompanies with watchful sensitivity, and there can be no complaints about either Michael Ponder's truthful production or Peter Hunter's assiduously detailed notes. This generously filled anthology deserves every success.”
I. Pastorale
