There Is Sweet Music: Part-songs By Sir Edward Elgar
Proteus Ensemble; Stephen Shellard
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Cat No:
AV2716
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Description
There Is Sweet Music is the idyllic title of the first AVIE release by the eight-voice Proteus Ensemble and their conductor Stephen Shellard, which surveys a selection of relatively rare part-songs by Sir Edward Elgar.
Elgar maintained his dedication to composing part-songs throughout his life and imbued each of them with an inimitable character. Like the composer's celebrated "Enigma Variations", his part-songs bear an array of inspirations and dedicatees, including his wife Caroline Alice who penned the poem of the album's closer, "O Happy Eyes", shortly after she and Elgar were married. This early work became a companion to the song "Love," written eight years later and also dedicated to Caroline Alice. Elgar turned to famous poets and peers - Lord Byron for "Deep in my soul", Percy Bysshe Shelley for "O wild West Wind!", and Alfred Lord Tennyson whose poem "The Lotos-Eaters" provides the album's title track. English translations of Russian poems lend themselves to "Death on the Hills", "Love's Tempest" and "Serenade". Elgar frequently found inspiration in Italy, where he composed "Angelus', a song dedicated to his close friend Alice Stuart Wortley whom he called "Windflower" and whose spirit is enshrined in his Violin Concerto. Stephen Shellard's Elgarian epiphany began in 1990 when he joined Dr. Donald Hunt's choir at Worcester Cathedral as an Alto Lay Clerk. Dr. Hunt's inspired and devoted expertise in performances of works by Worcester's most famous musical son cast a life-long spell on Stephen that manifests itself in these beautiful performances with his Proteus Ensemble.
'Beautifully recorded in Pershore Abbey under the watchful supervision of producer Andrew Keener, there are splendidly alert and sympathetic performances from the Proteus Ensemble' – Gramophone
Featured on BBC 3's Record Review on 9th November: 'The album is the fruit of Stephen Shellard's long-standing enthusiasm for the music, and part of what is so exciting about it. […] This is definitely not background music.'
'Shellard shows meticulous attentions to detail, with superb control over the ebb and flow of rubato and rapidly shifting dynamics in Elgar's music.' – BBC Music Magazine (4 stars)
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Tracklisting
- 1. Elgar: The Fountain, Op. 71, No. 2
- 2. Elgar: Serenade, Op. 73, No. 2
- 3. Elgar: Death on the Hills, Op. 72
- 4. Elgar: To her beneath whose stedfast star (from No. 10 "Choral Songs in honour of Her Majesty Queen Victoria")
- 5. Elgar: Angelus (Tuscany), Op. 56
- 6. Elgar: Deep in my soul, Op. 53, No. 2
- 7. Elgar: Good Morrow (a simple carol for His Majesty's happy recovery)
- 8. Elgar: O wild West Wind!, Op. 53, No. 3
- 9. Elgar: My love dwelt in a Northern land (Romance), Op. 18, No. 3
- 10. Elgar: As torrents in summer (from "Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf", Op. 30)
- 11. Elgar: They are at rest (Elegy)
- 12. Elgar: Love, Op. 18, No. 2
- 13. Elgar: The Shower, Op. 71, No. 1
- 14. Elgar: There is sweet music, Op. 53, No. 1
- 15. Elgar: I sing the birth
- 16. Elgar: Love's Tempest, Op. 73, No. 1
- 17. Elgar: O happy eyes, Op. 18, No. 1
Disc 1
Side 1
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PRE-ORDER
Uncharted: Korngold * Brahms * Clara & Robert Schumann
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There Is Sweet Music: Part-Songs by Sir Edward Elgar
Proteus Ensemble; Stephen Shellard
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Resonance: Beethoven, Benjamin, Dowland, Josquin
Benjamin Hochman
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Missa Gratias agimus tibi
Kammerchor Stuttgart; Barockorchester Stuttgart; Frieder Bernius; Hannah Morrison; Franziska Bobe;
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Jubelt und freut euch - Gesange aus Taize
Choralchor der St. Johannis-Kantorei Rostock
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Melchior VuLPius Edition 4: 8 to 14-part motets from...
Capella Daleminzia, Capella Vocale Waldheim, Rene Michael Roder
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Singt Und Klingt!
Gewandhaus Children's Choir, Frank-Steffen Elster, Gewandhaus Youth Choir, Gewandhaus Choir, Gregor
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Musica Sacromontana
Aukso - Chamber Orchestra Of The City Of Tychy, Camerata Silesia Katowice City Singers' Ensemble, M
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Karajan conducts Missa & Requiem
Herbert von Karajan; The Philharmonia Orchestra; Berliner Philharmoniker
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Mozart Requiem
Soloists, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Orchestra of the 18th Century, Frans Bruggen
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