Release Date: 31 October 2006
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313014477
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: ALWYN
Description
William Alwyn (1905–1985) Elizabethan Dances • Oboe Concerto • Aphrodite in Aulis The orchestral music of William Alwyn spans a period of fifty years from the Peter Pan Suite of 1923 to the Fifth Symphony (Hydriotaphia) of 1973 and as such forms a large and important part of his compositional output. Amongst his works in the genre are five symphonies, concertos for flute, violin, oboe, harp, piano and many descriptive shorter pieces. In addition to these are four operas, vocal, chamber and instrumental music. He was also a linguist, poet and painter. His mastery of orchestration is evident in every piece included here and in part comes as a result of an in-sider's experience. Alwyn entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1920 at the age of fifteen as a flautist (with piano a second instrument) and from 1922 was playing in the Academy orchestra and later under the baton of Sir Edward Elgar with the London Symphony Orchestra, where he gained immeasurable knowledge of the orchestra. He spent much time studying the scores of Debussy, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Szymanowski. The latter three had been introduced to him by his composition teacher John B. McEwen (himself a composer of a large number of works) and thus opened up a new colourful world of possibilities to the young composer. Further experience was gained from his involvement with writing music for the cinema, composing some two hundred film scores between 1936 and 1963 for both documentary and feature films. Here he was able to experiment to the full on the many varied subjects presented to him for a suitable musical background to enhance the pictures' message and mood. It was the only medium in which he could see very quickly whether he had been successful in trying out some new way and or idea of scoring. A film score had to be provided fairly quickly, as it was nearly always the last process to be added before the film's release, and Alwyn threw himself into the task wholeheartedly. One week he would be composing the score to the film, the next he was able to hear the result, an event which he always looked forward to. Amongst Alwyn's film scores are some classic British films, including The Way Ahead, Desert Victory, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The History of Mr Polly, The Winslow Boy, The Rake's Progress, The Rocking Horse Winner and A Night To Remember.Alwyn's first major work for orchestra, the brief and imaginatively scored Five Preludes, dating from 1927, were first performed the same year at the Promenade Concerts at Queen's Hall under Sir Henry Wood and started him on the road to perfecting his orchestral technique. The Elizabethan Dances date from thirty years later, composed between 1956 and 1957. Although the BBC had commissioned a work from him for their Light Music Festival of 1957, the idea for the piece had been first suggested to him by his friend and publisher Bernard de Nevers, director of Alfred
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
