EMR CD073 | DETAILS
  EMR CD073
   
 

FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM:
THE FORGOTTEN SONGS OF ARNOLD BAX
   
  Jeremy Huw Williams (bar.)
Paula Fan (pf.)
   
  EAN 5 060263 500681

This unique collection of songs by Sir Arnold Bax features 18 songs in four languages, all heard in first recordings; five have never been performed before. Mostly composed during his twenties and thirties, these settings reflect the myriad interests of this enigmatic musical individualist. Bax’s devotion to the spiritual culture, literary tradition and landscapes of the Celtic world is on full display, punctuated by forays into Norse and German mythology as well as French gastronomical farce and folksong.

 

Almost all of the songs were transcribed from Bax’s manuscripts by Graham Parlett, whose insightful and detailed notes contribute much to the understanding of the composer’s restless musical explorations. Dr Parlett’s good-natured willingness to answer countless emailed queries during the preparation for this recording was invaluable. His unexpected death before the disc could be released has come as a shock to all who knew and admired him, and it is to his memory that this recording is dedicated.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Arnold Bax (1883–1953)
1. ‘THE GRAND MATCH’  
2. ‘TO MY HOMELAND’  
3. ‘LEAVES, SHADOWS AND DREAMS’  
4. ‘VIKING BATTLE-SONG’  
5. ‘I FEAR THY KISSES, GENTLE MAIDEN’  
6. ‘THE TWA CORBIES’  
7. ‘LONGING’  
8. ‘FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM’  
9. ‘LANDSKAB’  
10. ‘MARGUERITE’  
11. ‘DAS TOTE KIND’  
12. ‘WELCOME, SOMER’  
13. ‘OF HER MERCY’  
14. ‘A LEADER’  
15. ‘THE SPLENDOUR FALLS’  
16. ‘LE CHANT D’ISABEAU’  
17. ‘A RABELAISIAN CATECHISM’  
18. ‘CARREY CLAVEL’  
       
ALL WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDINGS

 

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