Release Date: 22 September 2023
Label: Prima Facie
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 7141148048936
Description
Available for the first time, all sixty-seven songs composed by Harold Fraser-Simson (1872-1944) to the famous poetry of A A Milne. When we were very young, Now We Are Six, Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner are all represented on the album along with a complete recording of the pantomime The King's Breakfast.
Also on the album are the collection of eight songs Fraser-Simson wrote using the words of Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland.
This album spans well known settings (Buckingham Palace, Halfway Down, Cottleston Pie & Vespers) to unknown and previously unrecorded works.
A wonderful nostalgia trip for those familiar with some of these songs from their youth and a brilliant album to listen along with children. Volante Opera Productions is proud to be able to release this comprehensive collection so that future generations will be able to listen to and enjoy a piece of British musical history that otherwise would be lost to time.
Recorded by a team of seven singers (Julian Boyce, Simon Crosby Buttle, Helen Greenaway, Rosie Hay, Philip Lloyd-Evans, Francesca Saracino & Stephen Wells) and pianist Frederick Brown - all of whom appear by arrangement with Welsh National Opera.
"Baritone Philip Lloyd-Evans […] produces the perfect mixture of sadness and befuddlement [in Christopher Robin is going]. All the other singers here are equally fine. I especially liked tenor Simon Crosby Buttle in The End, the last song in Now We Are Six, and in the well-known Buckingham Palace, where he shares honors with soprano Rosie Hay, whom I must mention for her rendition of Wind on the Hill from Now We Are Six. […] [This] Prima Facie version has seven very talented singers, which sometimes allows for interesting combinations of voices, and a chronological ordering, likely appealing for many listeners." – MusicWeb International
Tracklisting
Xuefei Yang, Johannes Moser, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Or
Kenneth Hamilton
The Choir of Robinson College, Cambridge & Will Sims
Kenneth Hamilton
Michael Cretu
Laura Serra
Helen Cawthorne
David Daly, Duncan Honeybourne, Ondrej Vrabec, Daniel Wiesner, Graham Walker, David Trippett
Volante Opera Productions
