EMR CD085 | DETAILS
  EMR CD085
   
 

LA BELLE DAME
   
  BBC Concert Orchestra | John Andrews (cond.)
Roderick Williams (bar.) | Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn)
   
  EAN 5 060263 500797

EM Records is delighted to announce the release of “La Belle Dame”, World Première recordings of turn-of-the-century English Romanticism.

 

In the decades either side of the death of Queen Victoria, British composers were delighting their audiences whilst also searching for their voices in a world where Romanticism was opening out into the ever-greater harmonic and dramatic possibilities that the twentieth century would bring. This disc brings together some of the most vibrant works of those decades, incredibly all in World Première recordings, with Roderick Williams giving voice to a tradition of large-scale vocal scenes with orchestra that has, sadly, all but disappeared.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Roger Quilter (1877–1953)
1. “THE FAITHLESS SHEPHERDESS”  
       
Frederick Delius (1862–1934)
“PETITE SUITE D’ORCHESTRE”
2. I. Marche  
3. II. Berceuse  
4. III. Scherzo  
5. IV. Duo  
6. V. Tema con Variazioni  
       
Gustav Holst (1874–1934)
7. “ORNULF’S DRAPA”  
       
Norman O’Neill (1875–1934)
8. “LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI”  
       
Cyril Scott (1879–1970)
9. “THE BALLAD OF FAIR HELEN OF KIRKCONNEL”  
       
Havergal Brian (1876–1972)
orch. Rupert Marshall-Luck
10. “LEGEND”  
       
Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847–1935)
11. “COLOMBA”  

 

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