Cameo Classics

[albion]

Conflating information from several sites, the new Cameo CD should be available from 1st November -

Walter Thomas Gaze Cooper - Concertino for Oboe and Strings
Frederick Septimus Kelly - Serenade for Flute and Strings
Cyril Scott - Harpsichord Concerto
Joseph Holbrooke - Pierrot and Pierrette, ballet music
Maurice Blower - Horn Concerto and Eclogue for Horn and Strings

John McDonaugh, oboe
Rebecca Hall, flute
Michael Laus, harpsichord
José Garcia Gutierrez, horn
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra/ Michael Laus

CC9032CD

I'm looking forward to hearing all of this repertoire - a very enterprising programme.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Holbrooke ballet will not be on that CD. It wouldn't fit. So it is going to appear on a later one - probably with Somervell's Thalassa Symphony - both have been recorded.

[albion]

Gareth, many thanks for this update on Cameo repertoire - it did look a bit of a squeeze. Good news about the Somervell, too!

[albion]

Although not yet advertised on the Cameo website, this intriguing new disc has obtained a very good review over at Musicweb - http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Nov11/British_composers2_CC9032CD.htm

[Mark Thomas]

"The concise, always interesting and factually specific notes are by that rising star of the revival of the expanding peripheries of British music, Garteh Vaughan."

And there was I calling you Gareth, all these years! How's it feel to be a"rising star"?

[albion]

Garteh Vaughan.

The joys of the typo - it could have been worse, it could have been Gertie.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Or even Grottie! Heigh-ho!

[albion]

Seriously, many thanks Gareth for taking such an active role in getting this music recorded.

Besides this latest release we can look forward to Ruth Gipps' Piano Concerto, Cyril Scott's Harpsichord Concerto, Alexander Mackenzie's La Belle Dame sans Merci, Somervell's Thalassa Symphony and Holbrooke's Pierrot and Pierrette. This is real enterprise! Any chance of some Sacheverell Coke?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Any chance of some Sacheverell Coke?

Eventually - I hope!

[albion]

Now up on the website -

http://www.cameo-classics.com/home.html?page=shop.product_details&category_id=86&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=86

William Gaze Cooper is surely nothing more than a slip of the digits.

Note: Volumes 3 and 4 follow in December 2011

[albion]

Great news - volume 3 has just been announced on the Cameo website -



CC9034CD

Arthur Somervell - Symphony in D, Thalassa
Alexander Mackenzie - La Belle Dame sans Merci
Josef [Joseph] Holbrooke - Pantomime Suite

Malta Philharmonic Orchestra/ Michael Laus

[Alan Howe]

But apparently it can't be ordered yet...

[Jimfin]

Wonderful! Anything by Mackenzie or Holbrooke makes me happy (apart from some of the Holbrooke tone poems, which are a bit samey to my ears). Mackenzie still awaits the extensive treatment accorded to Parry and Stanford, but everything I have heard from his pen has made me a happier person.

[Mark Thomas]

Mackenzie's La Belle Dame Sans Merci is already available in the British Music Broadcasts thread here.

[albion]

My copy of ECPC3 arrived today and first impressions of the recording are extremely favourable. At last we have a commercial release of the major 'missing link' in Somervell's orchestral catalogue (the 1912 Thalassa Symphony), together with another substantial (early) work by Mackenzie, La Belle Dame sans Merci (1883). The substantial 'makeweight' is Holbrooke's Pantomime Suite for Strings, Op.16 (dated to the early 1900s).

The orchestral sound is very good, in a resonant (but not too resonant) acoustic and, what is more important, the Malta Philharmonic are more than capable. There are helpful notes by the conductor, Michael Laus, and Gareth Vaughan (the type-face is small but readable with a bit of concentration) and an insignificant error in the track listing gives the last movement of the Somervell as Clown (transposed from the last movement of the Holbrooke) when it should be 'Allegro'. All in all a highly enterprising release which deserves the support of all those interested in British music.

Volume 4 (noted on the back of the booklet as a January '12 release) is detailed as being set to contain Kenneth Leighton's Piano Concerto No.1, together with three works by Ruth Gipps: the Piano Concerto, Op.34; Theme and Variations for Piano, Op.57a; and Opalescence, Op.72.