trad.: O Waly, Waly ('The Water is Wide')

During the 1960s, Louis Halsey, together with the Elizabethan Singers and The Louis Halsey Singers made a number of recordings of British choral music for Decca. Three LPs devoted to the music of Parry, Elgar, Stanford and Delius and of folk song settings by a range of British composers, are here collected on this 2CD set, all of this material released on CD for the first time. Though his magnificent choral piece Jerusalem eclipses much of his other work, the beautiful Songs of Farewell, written during the last three years of his life must be counted among the masterpieces of English choral music. Diana McVeagh describes the Elgar choral songs as ‘elaborate, expansive, and gorgeous as sheer sound’ and so they are in these wonderful performances. All but one of Delius’s partsongs were recorded for the original LP and the disc of folk songs arranged by Tippett, Williamson, Grainger, Vaughan Williams, Holst and other front-rank British composers is charming and amusing. Original LP notes (including a very persuasive one by Louis Halsey himself) are reprinted in the booklet.

“Whether Scholl’s voice at all resembles that of the great original [Senesino] we cannot know, but it is wonderfully pure and moves with marvellous flexibility. He has the art of making recitative sound spontaneous and of catching the rhythmic impulse as though native to his body.” John Steane, Opera Now

Arrangements by Craig Hella Johnson.

This CD captures the exquisite sound of Conspirare's Company of Voices, as heard and seen on national television in the US. In this one-hour concert contemporary music blends seamlessly with classical favourites, taking the listener on a journey of innovative sound, vibrant images and thought-provoking ideas.The concert was performed and taped live on October 12 at Austin's Long Center for the Performing Arts.

Now in its 17th season, Conspirare is recognised for its emotionally resonant performances and an extraordinary ability to connect with audiences, providing listeners with an evocative and often transformative cultural experience. Under the artistic leadership of Craig Hella Johnson, Conspirare has recorded 3 CDs and received four Grammy nominations. Its inaugural project for harmonia mundi usa, Threshold of Night, was released in September, 2008.

At a time when we are going farther and farther afield in the quest for new musical experiences, it is good to know that a source of popular music existed in England that sufficed to beguile every phase of life, to enrich the experience of serious composers through whom it influenced all of Europe, and that even today many of the tunes at the top of the Hit Parade are heavily indebted to it.

"The most wonderful natural soprano voice you will ever hear." Do not miss it.

Lynda has been singing since she was a young girl and today she has won many prizes and awards in Northern Ireland. She studied music at Queen's University, Belfast where she studied with the late great Irene Sandford. Much in demand as a soloist, Lynda also has been involved with Castleward Opera where she has sung a number of leading roles. She has also featured as guest soprano with the Ulster Orchestra in their series of Christmas Concerts as well as on television in different programmes for the BBC.

I first came across Lynda Barrett when she was singing as part of a choir that I was recording in St.Anne's Cathedral, Belfast. Suddenly in the solo section of an anthem a solo voice shone through that was something rather special and that nearly made me fall off my seat in amazement! It was a wonderful mixture of purity, clarity and beauty that was far removed from the average solo soprano. Not only was this a voice of rare quality but Lynda sang from the heart and not from the head. Here was a God given gift from a very modest lady, which i felt should be heard by a far wider audience. A CD was therefore born...

Lynda has recorded a programme of music that is delightful on the earand one that I feel best conveys the qualities of this superb voice captured for posterity.

'Aunt Jane began her day with music...much that she played from was manuscript, copied out by herself…' Her manuscripts survive, and this programme is drawn from them: a mixture of the light and fashionable music of the day for flute, voice and piano, recorded in her home at Chawton in Hampshire.

London in the early 1700’s offered a dazzling mix of virtually every European musical style. The recent union between England and Scotland led to an increased cultural exchange, and English audiences were entranced by the rhythms and colours of the traditional tunes of Scotland. Various collections, such as the settings by the recorder virtuoso Francesco Barsanti, were published and even Handel could not resist a few turns at the hornpipe in his Water Music. This state of affairs is reflected in the present mix of four baroque sonatas, by composers associated with London in various ways, and nine Scottish tunes in arrangements based on the Barsanti settings.

This imaginative programme is characteristic of the approach adopted by Parnassus Avenue, an ensemble which is constantly challenging ‘baroque standards’: according to Parnassus Avenue there is no ‘early’ music, just a never-ending ‘now’. In lending a John Stanley Adagio the same melancholy expressivity as the mournful Waly waly, and applying the same virtuosity to the hypnotic Clout the Cauldron as to a Handel Allegro, Dan Laurin and his colleagues also demonstrate that there are no genres, only one seamless musical whole.