EMR CD065 | DETAILS
  EMR CD065
   
 

THOSE BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS
   
  Roderick Williams (bar.)
Michael Dussek (pf.)
The Bridge Quartet
   
  EAN 5 060263 500612

The celebrated baritone Roderick Williams joins the Bridge Quartet and acclaimed pianist Michael Dussek in the World Première recording of Gurney’s song-cycle ‘The Western Playland’, first performed at The English Music Festival in 2018. The disc also includes the first recording of the same composer’s String Quartet in D minor of 1925 (a rare survivor among Gurney string quartets), as well as songs by Gurney and Howells (including the wonderful ‘King David’).

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Ivor Gurney (1890–1937)
‘THE WESTERN PLAYLAND (AND OF SORROW)’ (World Première recording)
1. I. ‘Reveille’  
2. II. ‘Loveliest of Trees’  
3. III. ‘Golden Friends’  
4. IV. ‘Twice a Week’  
5. V. ‘The Aspens’  
6. VI. ‘Is my team ploughing?’  
7. VII. ‘The Far Country’  
8. VIII. ‘March’  
       
Herbert Howells (1892–1983)
from FOUR SONGS, op.22
9. ‘There was a Maiden’  
10. ‘Girl’s Song’  
       
11. ‘KING DAVID’  
       
12. ‘THE MUGGER’S SONG’  
       
Ivor Gurney
13. ‘EDWARD, EDWARD’  
       
STRING QUARTET IN D MINOR (World Première recording)
14. I. [without tempo indication]  
15. II. Adagio  
16. III. Andante con moto  
17. IV. Allegro molto  
       
18. ‘BY A BIERSIDE’  

 

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