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The disc of works by Frederick Cowen and Percy Sherwood is to be recorded this week for the label EM Records.

Sherwood's Concerto for Violin and Cello (which received what is believed to be its World Première performance at The English Music Festival a few weeks ago) will be recorded alongside Frederick Cowen's Fifth Symphony at the Watford Colosseum by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews.  The soloists for the Sherwood will be the violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck and the cellist Joseph Spooner.

Fund-raising efforts to cover the costs of this recording are ongoing and there are still opportunities to subscribe to the disc.  If you'd like to make a donation, please visit the project's dedicated website: http://www.sherwood-cowen.com/donate.html.  As you'll see,  there are various benefits on offer, including the chance to attend the recording sessions and complimentary copies of the disc upon its release.  All donors will be acknowledged in the CD booklet unless anonymity is preferred.

So far, we have raised over 43% of the funds needed, so much has been done - but further donations are very welcome in order that this rare repertoire may be brought to public attention.

Hallo Alan!  Many thanks for the welcome!  The coupling will, I understand, be Cowen's Symphony no.5 - another hitherto unrecorded work.

The reputation of the Anglo-German composer Percy Sherwood (1866-1939) was a victim of the tumults of the 20th century. Born to an English father and a German mother in the cosmopolitan city of Dresden, he achieved an enviable reputation as a composer, pianist and teacher. During a visit to his family in the summer of 1914, he was stranded by the outbreak of the First World War. He chose to remain in England thereafter, but, dogged by poor health, he died shortly before the Second World War. Interest in Sherwood has grown in recent years with the recordings of his Second Piano Concerto by Hiroaki Takenouchi and of the complete surviving works for cello and piano by Joseph Spooner and David Owen Norris, both discs having received extremely warm reviews.

There can perhaps be no better way of marking the 150th anniversary of Sherwood's birth and cementing his reputation today than by recording the composer's Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra (1907–1908). This work – written at the height of Sherwood's career in Germany, not long before he was appointed a Royal Professor by the King of Saxony – will appear under the pioneering label EM Records, which in a few years has built an enviable reputation for bringing neglected masterpieces to music enthusiasts, with the world-class quality of its musicians and the polish of its production values attracting international acclaim. The soloists will be Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin) and Joseph Spooner (cello); both have garnered reputations for bringing unknown works to light, and Joseph is already fully immersed in Sherwood's idiom. The orchestra will be the BBC Concert Orchestra, itself famous for supporting rediscovered repertoire, conducted by John Andrews, with whom they have recently recorded a double CD of theatre music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

There is currently a crowdfunding campaign in place to help raise the money needed to make this recording happen.  If you would like to make a donation, please visit https://www.rockethub.com/projects/60297-premiere-recording-of-british-romantic-masterpieces.