British Music

[albion]

Albion:  I do have recordings of the Cyril Rootham and Joseph Holbrooke pieces you've mentioned in the last few postings - they're all mp3'd and stored in iTunes and on my iPod - but I have no idea how to get them to you.  Can you help?

Through the very kind generosity of our member dafrieze I've just received recordings of several important and exciting broadcasts:

Holbrooke: The Bells (broadcast 1978)
Rootham: Rhapsody on the tune 'Lazarus' (broadcast 1987)
Rootham: Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity (broadcast 1975)
Rootham: Symphony No.2 (Revelation) (broadcast 1984)

I have his permission to upload them into a BMB folder. I've gathered the relevant information and dates together into Folder 7 and will create a link later today. 

There is now a link to Folder 7 of BMB containing the four works listed above. There is also a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's poem (taken from the vocal score) which Holbrooke used as his text. I am currently preparing a copy of Milton's poem which Rootham used in his Nativity Ode and will upload this as well.

Once again, many thanks to dafrieze for supplying the original files of these rare broadcast recordings. 

[Pengelli]

Thank you 'dafrieze',too.....and Albion.

[albion]

There is a now also a copy of Milton's wonderful poem in Folder 7 to accompany the recording of Rootham's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. I've changed some of the archaic spellings to better reflect the text as given in the Stainer & Bell vocal score.

[dafrieze]

My pleasure.  I just discovered this site and plan to explore (and, I hope, contribute to) it for some time now.  And I want to thank Albion for having posted so many recordings already that I didn't have.  I live in America, and up until fairly recently it was difficult to get my hands on BBC broadcasts of, especially, obscure British works.  (The internet has changed all that.)

[Pengelli]

Listening to 'The Bells' now. This is exciting,can't understand why it wasn't performed again,after the 1978 broadcast. I will get to the Rootham as soon as I have the time.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thanks are due to both Albion and dafrieze for arranging to make these downloads available. "The Bells" is a stupendous score, but the BBC have omitted some of the most important instruments which Josef calls for - notably the Mushroom Bells which make a tremendous contribution to the timbres and, most shamefully, the concertina which has a crucial role and is occasionally quite exposed. Its absence, when you follow the score, is glaring. Still, what is there is well done and I hope it will inspire someone to mount (and record) a performance of this wonderful work with ALL the instruments, which will do the composer justice.

[Pengelli]

Yes,and one can just imagine what it will sound in modern digital sound quality. I'm hoping Chandos will get round to doing it,but maybe someone else? I HAD to listen to it all the way through,and none of it made me think of Wagner! I find with Holbrooke that the composers that most come to mind,if I'm looking for a comparison, tend to be French or Russian,although Holbrooke has his very own personal sound world,there's no doubt about that. A wonderful composer,he was just very unlucky. God,I hate fashion!

[albion]

"The Bells" is a stupendous score, but the BBC have omitted some of the most important instruments which Josef calls for - notably the Mushroom Bells which make a tremendous contribution to the timbres and, most shamefully, the concertina which has a crucial role and is occasionally quite exposed. Its absence, when you follow the score, is glaring.

In order to increase your appreciation of this wonderful music, you can download and follow the full orchestral score (Breitkopf & Hartel) of Holbrooke's The Bells from the IMSLP initiative: http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Bells,_Op.50a_%28Holbrooke,_Joseph%29

Please obey the copyright laws of your country.

[albion]

The 1935 Violin Concerto by Irish composer Ina Boyle is now uploaded to Folder 7. Beautifully lyrical, it shows the clear influence of her teacher Vaughan Williams in the modal tinge to much of the writing - it's rhapsodic structure may call certain other works to mind: The Lark Ascending and Julius Harrison's evocative Bredon Hill.

Repeated from an earlier post, here is a fascinating outline of her life and work, with a fairly comprehensive work-list of major compositions which, on the evidence of The Magic Harp and the Violin Concerto, certainly deserve further exploration: http://www.michaeljamiesonbristow.com/ina-boyle-1889-1967

The manuscripts are held in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin: http://marloc.library.tcd.ie/calmview/Overview.aspx (enter search term ina boyle).

[Mark Thomas]

Respect. As I believe they say...

[albion]

I've just uploaded broadcast performances of two wonderful choral works by Sir George Dyson: Saint Paul's Voyage to Melita (1933) and Nebuchadnezzar (1935) - Folder 7. 

[oldman]

Albion:

An incredible treasure trove of music. My thanks for it all.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I find with Holbrooke that the composers that most come to mind,if I'm looking for a comparison, tend to be French or Russian,although Holbrooke has his very own personal sound world,there's no doubt about that.

Absolutely spot on. Holbrooke has nothing at all to do with Wagner (except insofar as he used leitmotifs in the Cauldron trilogy) and everything to do with Tchaikovsky and Debussy. And he created his own distinctive (and, to my mind, distinguished) sound world.

[albion]

An incredible treasure trove of music. My thanks for it all.

I didn't realise that I still had the Dyson recordings, but it's amazing what you find squirrelled away! In Saint Paul (with it's fantastic evocation of a storm at sea, caused by the wind Euroclydon) the BBC Singers are more assured than the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus under Handley (on Somm - they are distinctly awry at moments in Agincourt on the same disc) and I think that Simon Joly obtains more drama from both scores than Handley or Hickox (Nebuchadnezzar on Chandos). The male soloists are all first rate too - all in all two great performances of works that really should be better known.

[albion]

The rediscovery of the Dyson cassette pointed a trail to other long-forgotten tapes of broadcasts. I've created Folder 8 which contains specially recorded performances by Barry Wordsworth and the BBC Concert Orchestra when Parry was Composer of the Week in 1995: the Soliloquy from his unperformed opera Guenever (1886), the first version of the Scherzo from the E minor Symphony (1889) and the five-movement Suite from the Incidental music to Ogilvie's Hypatia (1893).

There are also excerpts from Edward Loder's romantic opera Raymond and Agnes (1855).