Release Date: 01 July 2001
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 034571172439
Description
The life of Ivor Gurney was one of the most tragic in English musical history. A chorister in Gloucester Cathedral Choir at the turn of the century (along with Herbert Howells and Ivor Novello) he was later conscripted into The Great War where he was gassed in the trenches. This experience unhinged his mind and the last few years of his life were spent in an asylum.
Gurney was a prolific poet and the composer of some of the most beautiful songs in the English language, many of which are included on this disc. Some are comparatively well-known (I will go with my father a-ploughing; In Flanders; Down by the Salley Gardens and the five 'Elizas'); many are not. The moving 'Severn Meadows', which gives the disc its title, sets his own nostalgic poem written in the trenches.
This is tenor Paul Agnew's first solo CD and Julius Drake's debut on Hyperion.
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Laurence Perkins
Takacs Quartet, Marc-Andre Hamelin
English National Opera Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Steven Osborne
Stephen Hough, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Steven Isserlis, Philharmonia Orchestra / Paavo Jarvi
Marianne Beate Kielland, Nils Anders Mortensen
Adnieszka Rehlis, Aleksandra Kubas-Kruk, Magdalena Blum
Milan Siljanov; Nino Chokhnelidze
Thomas Elwin and Lana Bode
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Nicky Spence; Julius Drake
Kartal Karagedik
Billie Poole
