EMR CD037–38 | DETAILS
  EMR CD037–38
   
  NOW COMES BEAUTY
  BBC Concert Orchestra
Gavin Sutherland (cond.) | * Owain Arwel Hughes (cond.)
† Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn) | ‡ Roderick Williams (bar.)
§ David Owen Norris (pf)
   
  Release date: 27 May 2016 | EAN 5 060263 500384
RECORDED IN ASSOCIATION WITH
BBC RADIO 3

The English Music Festival has been in the privileged position of having some of Britain’s foremost composers writing works specifically for it, and EM Records is proud to collaborate with the BBC Concert Orchestra in bringing these exhilarating works to new audiences in a double-disc set. Sparkling and celebratory overtures are provided by award-winning composer Richard Blackford and Matthew Curtis, while Paul Carr provides gorgeous lyricism with his ‘Now Comes Beauty’ and ‘Suddenly It’s Evening’; and Philip Lane’s ‘Aubade Joyeuse’ lives up to its name. Both Christopher Wright’s ‘Legend’ and Paul Lewis’s ‘Norfolk Suite’ evoke a wonderful sense of atmosphere, while David Matthews’ ‘White Nights’ is full of searing beauty. Much-loved baritone Roderick Williams contributes to the disc in a performance of John Pickard’s ‘Binyon Songs’; while David Owen Norris is the soloist in his own effervescent Piano Concerto.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     

CD1
     
Matthew Curtis (b.1959)
1. ‘A FESTIVAL OVERTURE’  
       
David Matthews (b.1943)
2. ‘WHITE NIGHTS’ †  
       
Paul Carr (b.1961)
3. ‘NOW COMES BEAUTY’  
       
Paul Lewis (b.1943)
‘NORFOLK SUITE’
4. ‘Castle Rising’  
5. ‘Wymondham Abbey’  
6. ‘Ranworth Broad’  
7. ‘Norwich Market’  
       
John Pickard (b.1963)
‘BINYON SONGS’ ‡
8. ‘Nature’  
9. ‘Sowing Seed’  
10. ‘Autumn Song’  
11. ‘When all the World is hidden’  
12. ‘The Burning of the Leaves’  
       
       

CD2
       
Richard Blackford (b.1954)  
1. ‘SPIRITED’ *  
       
Paul Carr (b.1961)
2. ‘SUDDENLY IT’S EVENING’ †  
       
Philip Lane (b.1950)  
3. ‘AUBADE JOYEUSE’  
       
Christopher Wright (b.1954)  
4. ‘LEGEND’  
       
David Owen Norris (b.1953)
PIANO CONCERTO §
5. I. Allegro  
6. II. Andante serioso  
7. III. Allegro molto  

 

REVIEWS
Beautifully shaped by Benjamin Frith... Beguiling sounds, graced by the tawny richness and unexaggerated line of Richard Jenkinson’s cello playing... The sense of purpose and sureness of line of Ian Venables’ music is pure oxygen.
EMR CD31 | BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Exquisitely rewarding... Ravishing accounts.
EMR CD029 | CHOIR AND ORGAN
This is music of great beauty and integrity and the performances fully do it justice. It would be criminal to let it pass you by.

EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW

The Bridge Quartet approach these pieces with a sympathetic and insightful warmth, and confirm their ambassadorial credentials for British chamber music. A lovely, radiant disc.
EMR CD025 | Gramophone
Duncan Honeybourne’s playing is astonishingly affectionate, yet never saccharine... Honeybourne plays with suave confidence.
EMR CD024 | INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Rupert Marshall-Luck is an ideal interpreter: generously but not effusively lyrical; agile and athletic... The warm, folk-song like slow movement is at times almost painfully beautiful, with a shimmering pastoral central section... Marshall-Luck is, again, indefatigable and keenly picks up on the work’s melancholic strain.  Finely recorded and with comprehensive booklet notes, this is a must for fans of 20th-century English repertoire.
EMR CD023 | THE STRAD