EMR CD080 | DETAILS
  EMR CD080
   
 

MALTWORMS AND MILKMAIDS
WARLOCK AND THE ORCHESTRA
   
  Nadine Benjamin (sop.) | Ben McAteer (bar.)
BBC Concert Orchestra | BBC Singers
David Hill (cond.)
   
  EAN 5 060263 500759

This important release by EM Records, including no fewer than seventeen World Première recordings, contains all of Peter Warlock’s music which involves the use of an orchestra. Its title alludes to two of his compelling interests: beer, and the opposite sex. A third interest was the revival of old music, as characterised by his suite Capriol, for which, alongside his beautiful carols and some of his solo songs, he is best known.

 

Essentially a miniaturist, Warlock used an orchestra for ten other short works and a brass band for two more, all but two of them with voices. In addition, Warlock’s various publishers authorised the issue of orchestral accompaniments for at least ten of his songs by other orchestrators, though all of these remained in manuscript until the recent research for this disc by the Peter Warlock Society has led to their emergence.

 

The works on this disc, largely composed in the 1920s, cover a wide range of moods, from the rumbustious tributes to drink in ‘Mr Belloc’s Fancy’ and ‘Captain Stratton’s Fancy’ to the sensibility of ‘The First Mercy’ and ‘Balulalow’. They illustrate Warlock&rsuo;s links both with English folk song and with contemporary continental angular harmonic developments. Overall, the works of few twentieth century composers convey such a sense both of tenderness and of exuberant enjoyment.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Peter Warlock (1894–1930)
1. ‘AS EVER I SAW’ (orch. anon.)
(World Première recording)		  
2. ‘AN OLD SONG’  
3. ‘MR BELLOC’S FANCY’ (orch. Frederick Bye)
(World Première recording)		  
4. ‘CAPTAIN STRATTON’S FANCY’ (orch. Peter Hope)
(World Première recording)		  
5. ‘SERENADE’  
6. ‘MILKMAIDS’ (orch.? Henry Geehl)
(World Première recording)		  
7. ‘ADAM LAY YBOUNDEN’ (orch. Reginald Jacques)
(World Première recording)		  
8. ‘LITTLE TROTTY WAGTAIL’ (orch. David Lane)
(World Première recording)		  
9. ‘THE BIRDS’ (orch. anon.)
(World Première recording)		  
10. ‘THE COUNTRYMAN’ (orch. Gerrard Williams
(World Première recording)		  
11. ‘YARMOUTH FAIR’ (orch. Kenneth Regan)
(World Première recording)		  
12. ‘SORROW’S LULLABY’  
13. ‘ONE MORE RIVER’
(World Première recording)		  
 
Peter Warlock and E.J. Moeran (1894–1950)
14. ‘MALTWORMS’
(World Première recording)		  
 
Peter Warlock
15. ‘CAPRIOLE’  
16. ‘A SAD SONG’
(World Première recording)		  
17. ‘PRETTY RING TIME’
(World Première recording)		  
18. ‘THE FIRST MERCY’ (orch. Raymond Bennell)
(World Première recording)		  
19. ‘FILL THE CUP, PHILIP’ (orch. Fred Tomlinson and John Mitchell)
(World Première recording)		  
20. ‘THE CRICKETERS OF HAMBLEDON’ (orch. Fred Tomlinson and
John Mitchell) (World Première recording)		  
21. ‘THE FIRST MERCY’ (orch. William Davies)
(World Première recording)		  
 
‘THREE CAROLS’ FOR CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA
22. ‘Tyrley, Tyrlow’  
23. ‘Balulalow’  
24. ‘As I Sat Under a Sycamore Tree’  

 

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