advertisement


English song cycles - please make suggestions

BenS

BenS

pfm Member
I can't shake a current obsession with the songs of Gerald Finzi. In particular the cycles, Till Earth Outwears and Oh Fair to See.
I have to play something from them every day, and I just like them more and more.
Could anyone suggest other English song cycles that I might enjoy.

Thanks,
Ben
 
This cd can be bought on the Meridian Records website:

CDE 84185 SONGS FROM A.E.HOUSMAN'S A SHROPSHIRE LAD

Graham Trew: Baritone,
Roger Vignoles: Piano,
Coull String Quartet

Wonderful, nostalgic .It won a 'Gramophone' magazine record award. The lp version is even better, but this is now a rarity.


Also , on the Hyperion label , SONGS OF TRAVEL , Somervell, Vaughan Williams, Butterworth.

Vignoles piano etc


Roy
 
Norman Green said:
This can be bought on the Meridian Records website:

CDE 84185 SONGS FROM A.E.HOUSMAN'S A SHROPSHIRE LAD

Graham Trew: Baritone,
Roger Vignoles: Piano,
Coull String Quartet

Wonderful, nostalgic .It won a 'Gramophone' magazine record award. The lp version is even better, but this is now a rarity.


Also , on the Hyperion label , SONGS OF TRAVEL , Somervell, Vaughan Williams, Butterworth.

Vignoles piano etc


Roy
Click to expand...


Thank you, good suggestions. I have heard and love that recording of songs based on Housman's A Shropshire Lad. You have reminded me to buy it. I look out for Songs of Travel too.
 
On Wenlock Edge, setting by Vaughan Williams of poems by Housman. I think it was broadcast on R3 the other night.

There are at least versions on Hyperion and Linn Records.
 
Ian Bostridge recorded a superb disc of English song - not cycles just individual songs and well worth hearing. And not just the well-known Vaughan Williams/Finzi stuff but lots of almost forgotten composers.

Vaughan Williams' friend George Butterworth composed setting of A Shropshire Lad - better in some cases than VW's settings IMO. Compare their different approaches to Is my team ploughing?. Bryn Terfel has recorded them on DG with VWs Songs of Travel and some Finzi - I think the album is called "The Vagabond".
 
It is not a cycle, but there is an excellent compilation of English songs, from Dowland to Britten, performed by Janet Baker and Gerald Moore (and others). It was issued on vinyl, EMI HQS1091.

Amazingly, it does not seem to be currently available on CD. Not just amazing, but disgraceful, for it is a beautiful production.
 
Peter Warlock's atmospheric and haunting The Curlew (and other settings of Yeats) comes first to mind.

Britten's various setting of Donne and Blake are also well worth the effort, and then of course there is the sublime Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

More recently, Birtwistle's The Woman and the Hare, and Elliott Carter's (an American) various song cycles (e.g. Syringa, or Tempo e Tempi) are starkly beautiful and profoundly engaging. Carter's song cycles seem to me to embody the transcendent which is at the core of the American psyche, and which is quite distinct from the pastoralism or celtic twilight of Finzi or Warlock.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions - I look forward to listening to all the music I now have on order.
Ben
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top