Vaughan Williams: Orpheus With His Lute

Many composers have been reluctant to set Shakespeare’s words to text, but Vaughan Williams remained undaunted, using his words many times in his compositions. This disc includes RVW’s ‘Orpheus with his lute’ and many other songs of longing of the early baroque. Performed by Swedish soprano Elisabeth Holmertz, the duo of Holmertz and Bock accompany her, along with Poul Hoxbro on low whistle.

Dame Felicity Lott, revered British soprano, says of this CD:

“ Summertime also has many of my favourite songs in English, French and German. We made the CD at a friend`s house, and the sessions were so relaxed, with no London traffic to cause endless retakes! It`s a real mix of beautiful songs of all kinds, on a summer theme. I chose songs I loved, from Gershwin to Christopher Robin….

Three centuries of song are represented here, and, as BBC Music Magazine's Hilary Finch put it “such is the skill of Johnson's programming that the entire recital seems to be a single, sustained exhalation of rapture and reflection”

She went on to say:

The upper reaches of Lott's still gleaming soprano inhabit Barber's 'Shining Night' and Fauré's Clair de lune'. And her robust English version of Schubert's 'Who is Sylvia?' finds an irresistible companion in Arne's 'Where the Bee Sucks', with its veritable midsummer night's dream of an accompaniment from Johnson. The artists' palpable sense of joy and well-being gathers momentum as they visit Berlioz's 'L'île inconnue' and as they sing on the water with Schubert. . . . And Lott and Johnson know well that the only way to face sentiment is to acknowledge its own integrity, as they do when they listen to Haydn Wood's 'Little Brown Bird' and eavesdrop with Fraser-Simson on Christopher Robin saying his prayers.

This CD features songs from a great variety of composers - Gershwin, Barber, Cole Porter, Bernstein, Brahms, Schubert, Arne, Schumann, Berlioz, and many more. A full 29 tracks of summer-themed songs!

This excellent release features the luminous beauty of Vaughan-Williams’ best-loved anthems, as well as his wonderful Mass in G minor. Also included is the world premiere recording of Five Mystical Songs in the version for piano quintet and chorus.

This is the second disc from Albion Records which is part of the Vaughan Williams Society.

Albion Records Ltd, a not-for-profit record label, is dedicated to recording rare 20th century English classical music, concentrating on Ralph Vaughan Williams. The label is a subsidiary of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and each of the CDs will contain world première recordings.

The disc again boasts the talents of Iain Burnside, Roderick Williams, Sarah Fox and Andrew Staples.

This second disc Kissing Her Hair, is a collection of early Vaughan Williams songs. One, Rondel, from which the title is gained, is unpublished and unrecorded; it is serenely beautiful and is as it was written when the composer was only 22. It will change perceptions of the quality of music Vaughan Williams was composing at this early age. This CD was released to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer. The picture on the cover is that of Ralph Vaughan William’s first wife Adeline