James Gilchrist, Philip Dukes & Anna Tilbrook - Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel (2018)

Having previously recorded British repertoire on Chandos, James Gilchrist joins the pianist Anna Tilbrook nine years after their previous recording, in a lyrical journey through some of Vaughan Williams’s best songs and rarely heard chamber works. They are joined by Philip Dukes, ‘Great Britain’s most outstanding viola player’, according to The Times. This album captures the composer’s love for both the voice and the viola, bringing together five works for tenor and piano, two for tenor, viola, and piano, and two works for viola and piano alone. Central to the recording is the fresh, invigorating, and at times reflective cycle ‘Songs of Travel,’ composed between 1901 and 1904, of special interest is also an arrangement of ‘Rhosymedre’ by the chief music critic of The Times, Richard Morrison, recorded here for the first time and performed by the same forces who gave the premiere of the arrangement in St. John’s Smith Square in 2016 to critical acclaim.

TRACKLIST

01. Songs of Travel: No. 1, The Vagabond
02. Songs of Travel: No. 2, Let Beauty Awake
03. Songs of Travel: No. 3, The Roadside Fire
04. Songs of Travel: No. 4, Youth and Love
05. Songs of Travel: No. 5, In Dreams
06. Songs of Travel: No. 6, The Infinite Shining Heavens
07. Songs of Travel: No. 7, Whither Must I Wander?
08. Songs of Travel: No. 8, Bright Is the Ring of Words
09. Songs of Travel: No. 9, I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope
10. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 1, Adagio
11. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 2, Andante sostenuto
12. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 3, Larghetto
13. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 4, Lento
14. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 5, Andante tranquillo
15. 6 Studies in English Folksong (Version for Viola & Piano): No. 6, Allegro vivace
16. The Sky Above the Roof
17. Orpheus with His Lute
18. The House of Life: No. 2, Silent Noon
19. The Winter's Willow
20. Romance for Viola & Piano
21. 3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes: No. 2, Rhosymedre (Arr. R. Morrison for Tenor, Viola & Piano)
22. 4 Hymns: No. 1, Lord! Come Away!
23. 4 Hymns: No. 2, Who Is This Fair One?
24. 4 Hymns: No. 3, Come Love, Come Lord
25. 4 Hymns: No. 4, Evening Hymn