British Music

[albion]

Some time ago I was given access to shamokin88's impressive catalogue of recordings and audaciously submitted a number of 'requests'. As a result of the first fulfilment, the following files are now in the archive:

Granville Bantock (1868-1946) - Five Ghazals of Hafiz (1905)
Thomas Dunhill (1877-1946) - Elegiac Variations in Memory of Parry (1922)
Cyril Scott (1879-1971) - Two Passacaglias on Irish Themes (1912)
Edgar Bainton (1880-1956) - The Blessed Damozel, Op.11 (1907)
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) - Suite No.1 in F (1944); Northumbrian Overture (1960)
Alan Bush (1900-1995) - Dorian Passacaglia and Fugue, Op.52 (1959); Scherzo for Winds and Percussion, Op.68 (1969)
Richard Arnell (1917-2009) - Ode to the West Wind, Op.59 (1949)

Many thanks, Edward.

I have converted all the files from m4a to mp3 but have not had opportunity to check them yet. Please let me know if there are any problems.

[semloh]

Some time ago I was given access to shamokin88's impressive catalogue of recordings and audaciously submitted a number of 'requests'. As a result of the first fulfilment, the following files are now in the archive:

......

Crikey - what a great set of uploads. Thank you indeed, Edward! 

[Dundonnell]

Thanks indeed to Edward

No doubt different pieces from this batch will have a particular appeal to different people but for me the most important piece is the Alan Bush Dorian Passacaglia and Fugue which some writers consider Bush at his very best

Incidentally, the conductor of the Gordon Jacob Northumbrian Overture is Eric Wild and the soloist in the Arnell is Jennifer Vyvyan....just for total accuracy

[TerraEpon]

Wow that's quite a collection of composers that I actually know of (except Arnell). I just wonder...why convert to Mp3? That reduces the quality :-(

[albion]

I just wonder...why convert to Mp3?

... because the m4a format is not usable for some of our members.

[semloh]

Dearest Albion (which is bound to signal a request! ), is there any chance of working a little of your magic on the BANTOCK - Five Ghazals of Hafiz upload, please? It's a beautiful piece, but so very quiet that I can hardly hear it. 

[albion]

Done.

[John Whitmore]

The CBS Havergal Brian recording by the LSSO, issued on LP in 1974 has been fully restored from the original vinyl and sound fabulous. This LP never appeared on CD and amateur transfers never sounded anywhere near as good as this properly prepared vinyl restoration.

http://www.klassichaus.us/Brian%3A-Symphony-No--22-Psalm-23-English-Suite-No--5---LSSO.php

[Mark Thomas]

John, your two recent posts about Havergal Brian recordings are essentially advertisements and, though I have no problem with that per se, they should be posted here rather than in the Downloads board, which is for freely shared non-commercial recordings

[albion]

Having just acquired a copy of Ivor Guest's excellent Ballet in Leicester Square (1992), I have amended all the date entries for Jacobi's Carmen ballet: it opened at the Alhambra on 20th October 1879, not 1897 as erroneously given in another source I consulted.

[BFerrell]

The download of Nicholas Maw's Serenade has a constant clicking sound two-thirds of the way through it. Can anything be done to eliminate this?

[albion]

I'm afraid not - it is symptomatic of digital damage on the source file: a common cause is that some old CDRs degrade with unexpected rapidity and files ripped from them can be affected by this persistent click.

[semloh]

Dearest Albion (which is bound to signal a request! ), is there any chance of working a little of your magic on the BANTOCK - Five Ghazals of Hafiz upload, please? It's a beautiful piece, but so very quiet that I can hardly hear it. 

Many thanks! Much better.

It's an interesting piece, which I've never heard before. Orientalism was a popular theme in the arts in the last decades of the 19thC and features in much music of the period - The Mikado, Omar Khayyam, Scheherezade, Aida, Lakme, Savitri, and so on - and a quck scan of his composition list shows that Bantock was especially affected. This piece creates the right atmosphere, although I find the reliance on a single voice - singing in a rather limited range - does become a bit wearing. What a pity there seems to be no contemporary recording. 

(Two songs appear on a Dutton CD, but with piano accompaniment)

[albion]

From Latvian, an enterprising and wide-ranging concert of Welsh music celebrating St David's Day, 2007 -

Gareth Glyn (b.1951) - Gŵyl Mabsant (Festival of a Patron Saint) (1993)
Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008) - La Serenissima: Images of Venice, Op.189 (2007)
William Mathias (1934-1992) - Psalm 150, Op.44 (1969)
Mansel Thomas (1909-1986) - Welsh Folksong Suite

Many thanks for these recordings, Maris.

[albion]

From shamokin88 -

Cyril Rootham (1875-1938) - The Lady of Shalott, Op.33 (1909)
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) - La Belle Dame sans Merci, Op.64 (1929)
Norman Demuth (1898-1968) - Viola Concerto (1951); Pan's Anniversary (1952)

This is a very welcome opportunity to hear large-scale choral pieces by Rootham and Gibbs, as performed by the Broadheath Singers at one of their pioneering concerts of British music.

Norman Demuth is today remembered as a critic and musicologist, but he was also the composer of nine symphonies (1930-57), concertos for Violin (1937), Piano (1943), Piano, left hand (1947), Cello (1956) and Organ (1959), six operas, eight ballets and numerous other orchestral and choral works. None of this music is heard today and these two rare recordings are of elderly vintage.

Many thanks to Edward for this fascinating repertoire.