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This CD commemorates and celebrates the talents of a golden generation of English lyricists through the voices of the greatest song-writer composers of the era. The lives of two of these, George Butterworth and Ivor Gurney, remain inextricably linked to the catastrophic 1914-18 conflict played out over the fields of Flanders. The poignancy of their songs, selected and performed by tenor Charles Daniels, pianist Michael Dussek and The Bridge Quartet, comprise an intimate journal, encapsulating moods of innocence and naivety, transience and despair epitomised by the poetry of Housman and Gurney’s 1919 song cycle ‘Ludlow and Teme’.
The Bridge Quartet also introduces two World Première recordings. Butterworth’s miniaturist Suite for String Quartet (1910) is a eulogy to the ‘untouchable England’ before the First World War, but also a perfectly expressed prophetic warning from a young man extinguished in his prime. Gurney’s epic nine-minute Adagio (1925) is a moving threnody from a survivor trying bravely to express in music the pain of living on with the consequences of what he encountered.
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) ‘LUDLOW AND TEME’ (1919) |
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1. | ‘When smoke stood up from Ludlow’ |
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2. | ‘Far in a western brookland’ |
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3. | ‘’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock Town’ |
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4. | ‘Ludlow Fair’ |
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5. | On the idle hill of summer’ |
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6. | ‘When I was one-and-twenty’ |
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7. | ‘The Lent Lily’ |
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George Butterworth (1885–1916) | |||
8. | ‘WHEN THE LAD FOR LONGING SIGHS’ (1910–11) |
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9. | ‘BREDON HILL’ (1910–11) |
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10. | ‘ON THE IDLE HILL OF SUMMER’ (1910–1911) |
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11. | ‘WITH RUE MY HEART IS LADEN’ (1910–11) |
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SUITE FOR STRING QUARTET (1910) (World Première recording) | |||
12. | Andante con moto, molto espressivo |
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13. | Scherzando – non allegro |
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14. | Allegro molto |
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15. | Molto moderato ed espressivo – |
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16. | Moderato |
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Peter Warlock (1894–1930) | |||
17. | ‘HERACLEITUS’ (1917) (World Première recording) |
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18. | ‘SWEET CONTENT’ (1919) (World Première recording) |
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George Butterworth | |||
19. | ‘FILL A GLASS WITH GOLDEN WINE’ (1911–12) |
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20. | ‘ON THE WAY TO KEW’ (1911–12) |
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Ivor Gurney | |||
21. | ADAGIO (1924) (World Première recording) |
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22. | ‘THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN’ (1918) |
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23. | ‘SEVERN MEADOWS’ (1917) |
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24. | ‘BY A BIERSIDE’ (1916) |
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EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW