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Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CDs

Posted By: Designol
Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CDs

Neville Marriner & Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' (1997) 2CD
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Peter Warlock - George Butterworth - Frederick Delius - Edward Elgar

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 630 Mb | Scans ~ 15 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Decca | # 452 707-2 | Time: 02:29:40

This is not strictly a compilation of what the British would term "light music," for there is music of substantial weight on these two discs: e.g., Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, and Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, but for the most part, Marriner and his charges offer less weighty fare that is familiar to many classical music-lovers and certainly dear to the heart of Anglophiles like this writer. From Vaughan Williams's perennial favorites, Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Song Suite, and George Butterworth's nigh-ubiquitous The Banks of Green Willow to less familiar fare like Delius's Serenade (composed to honor the 70th birthday of Frederick Delius) and the suite from Elgar's incomplete opera The Spanish Lady, this compilation of recordings–originally made in 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1979–embodies the spirit of England and does so faultlessly. This is a well chosen and exemplarily executed collection of English orchestral miniatures proffered by a conductor and orchestra whose names have become synonymous with the repertoire.

William Vann, Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea - Ralph Vaughan Williams: An Oxford Christmas (2021)

Posted By: ArlegZ
William Vann, Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea - Ralph Vaughan Williams: An Oxford Christmas (2021)

William Vann, Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea - Ralph Vaughan Williams: An Oxford Christmas (2021)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 302 Mb | Total time: 68:12 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Albion | # ALBCD050 | Recorded: 2020, 2021

This recording focusses on arrangements made by Vaughan Williams for The Oxford Book of Carols (1928), coupled with two later carols published by OUP. Many of the tunes are far from well-known and deserve a new audience. 10 of the 22 tracks are first recordings, but reserve the right to have overlooked one or two amidst the vast but very mixed heritage of recorded carols. The preface to The Oxford Book of Carols tells us that: "Variety in the method of singing is even more important than with hymns, and the verses should never be sung straight through all in the same way".

Jennifer Bate - British Organ Music: Elgar And His Contemporaries (1995)

Posted By: Designol
Jennifer Bate - British Organ Music: Elgar And His Contemporaries (1995)

Jennifer Bate - British Organ Music: Elgar And His Contemporaries (1995)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 292 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 187 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Organ | Label: ASV | # CD QS 6160 | Time: 01:15:21

"Jennifer Bate is an excellent organist, not only for her virtuosity, but for her musicianship and sensitivity in choosing her timbre. She loves what she plays and knows how to make others love it too" (Olivier Messiaen).

The Choir of Westminster Abbey, James O'Donnell - 'Rejoice, the Lord is king!': Great Hymns from Westminster Abbey (2014)

Posted By: Designol
The Choir of Westminster Abbey, James O'Donnell - 'Rejoice, the Lord is king!': Great Hymns from Westminster Abbey (2014)

'Rejoice, the Lord is king!': Great Hymns from Westminster Abbey (2014)
Robert Quinney, organ; The Choir of Westminster Abbey; James O'Donnell, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 326 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 160 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Choral | Label: Hyperion | # CDA68013 | Time: 01:08:46

This 2014 Hyperion collection of 22 hymns sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey is a straightforward presentation of familiar versions for choir and organ. For the most part, the arrangements are conventional four-part settings, with occasional interpolations of seldom-heard harmonizations and descants, and the performances by the men and boys are appropriately reverent and joyous. The majority of selections are hymns of praise, including Praise, my soul, the king of heaven; Thine be the glory; and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, though Drop, drop slow tears; I bind unto myself today; and Let all mortal flesh keep silence bring a more somber and penitential mood to the program. The recordings were made in late 2012 and early 2013 in Westminster Abbey, so the sound of the album is typically resonant and spacious, and the choir has a well-blended tone, though the trade-off for the glorious acoustics is a loss of clarity in some of the words.

Leonard Slatkin conducts Vaughan Williams [6CDs] (2011)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Leonard Slatkin conducts Vaughan Williams [6CDs] (2011)

Leonard Slatkin conducts Vaughan Williams [6CDs] (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 2,15 Gb | Total time: 8:31:46 | Scans included
Classical | Label: RCA Red Seal | # 886979024922 | Recorded: 1981-1993

V. Williams is a composer representing British late-blooming nationalist music. Synthesizing the influences of his country's folk songs, musical traditions, and Impressionism, he has established a gentle, conservative, yet unique style. These symphonies, which express the anxieties and hopes of modern people, are his signature works, and are characterized by their grandeur, beauty, and familiarity. Slatkin's performance is a masterpiece with a very clear and clean interpretation.

Andrew Nethsingha, Choir of St Johns College, Cambridge - Hear My Words: Choral Classics from St John’s (2010)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Andrew Nethsingha, Choir of St Johns College, Cambridge - Hear My Words: Choral Classics from St John’s (2010)

Andrew Nethsingha, Choir of St Johns College, Cambridge - Hear My Words: Choral Classics from St John’s (2010)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 274 Mb | Total time: 77:25 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHSA 5085 | Recorded: 2010

As exclusive Chandos artists, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge here presents its second release. The first CD, of choral music by Howells (CHAN10587), was released to rave reviews in March this year. Choir and Organ wrote: ‘There is musicianship here of a rare and moving kind.’ This new release of popular choral classics should meet with a similar reception while at the same time appealing to a wider audience.

Peter Oundjian, Toronto Symphony Orchestra - Williams: Piano Concerto; Oboe Concerto (2018)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Peter Oundjian, Toronto Symphony Orchestra - Williams: Piano Concerto; Oboe Concerto (2018)

Peter Oundjian, Toronto Symphony Orchestra - Vaughan Williams: Piano Concerto; Oboe Concerto; Serenade to Music; Flos Campi (2018)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 317 Mb | Total time: 82:21 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Chandos | # CHAN 5201 | Recorded: 2017

The British serialist Elisabeth Lutyens characterized Ralph Vaughan Williams as a member of the "cowpat school." The description is not only uncharitable but inaccurate: Vaughan Williams was interested not only in pastoralism but in war, religion (although he was an atheist), mysticism, the works of Shakespeare, American poetry, and much more. Musically he could sound, as in the Piano Concerto in C major heard here, like a pure Parisian neoclassicist, like a fairly hard-edged modernist, like a neo-Renaissance glorifier of British tradition, or, yes, like a pastoralist, as in the marvelous little Oboe Concerto in A minor on this Chandos release.

Sir Neville Marriner, Barry Wordsworth, Adrian Boult - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works (1999) 2CDs

Posted By: Designol
Sir Neville Marriner, Barry Wordsworth, Adrian Boult - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works (1999) 2CDs

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works (1999) 2CDs
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner
New Queen's Hall Orchestra, conducted by Barry Wordsworth
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Boult

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 644 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 347 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Orchestral | Label: Decca | # 460 357-2 | Time: 02:25:54

This two-CD collection offers a strong, masterfully performed selection of Vaughan Williams' shorter orchestral works. All the best-known pieces are here–the Tallis Fantasia, the Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending, Dives and Lazarus–as well as lesser-known but equally beautiful works such as the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, the Concerto Grosso and the Oboe Concerto. Disc One is devoted to performances by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; on Disc Two, Barry Wordsworth and the New Queen's Hall Orchestra take over, except for one selection–the fiercely dramatic Partita for Double String Orchestra–performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic. I did not think there could be a more beautiful performance of The Lark Ascending than the one by Boult and Hugh Bean, but the recording here by Marriner and Iona Brown is at very least its equal. For anyone who loves the music of Vaughan Williams, or for anyone who wants to get acquainted with this great and underrated composer, this double-CD set is a must.

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica; Symphony No.9 (2023)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica; Symphony No.9 (2023)

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica; Symphony No.9 (2023)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 333 Mb | Total time: 78:44 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Hyperion | # CDA68405 | Recorded: 2022

Two late, great Vaughan Williams symphonies: with the ‘Antartica’ and No 9, Martyn Brabbins and his BBC forces complete a cycle enthusiastically acclaimed by Radio 3 Record Review as ‘unmissable’.

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 8 (2022)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 8 (2022)

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 8 (2022)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 305 Mb | Total time: 74:02 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Hyperion | # CDA68396 | Recorded: 2021

‘Essential listening’ … ‘fabulously assured’ … ‘unequivocally excellent’: just a few of the critical superlatives earned by Martyn Brabbins’s magnificent Vaughan Williams symphony cycle. In this, the penultimate release of the series, two of the late symphonies are coupled with more rare RVW.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Lachrymae - Music for Strings: Purcell, Britten, Part, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Tippett (2012)

Posted By: Designol
Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Lachrymae - Music for Strings: Purcell, Britten, Part, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Tippett (2012)

Lachrymae - Music for Strings: Purcell, Britten, Pärt, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Tippett (2012)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Nicolas Bône (viola)
Douglas Boyd, William Conway, Richard Egarr (conductors)

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 288 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 175 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Apex | # 2564 66070-5 | Time: 01:12:00

This CD is one of two Warner Classics recordings taped live during a series of concerts presented by the world renowned Chamber Orchestra of Europe during Easter Week 2003. The title for the concert series, presented in London, was Passions and Diversions as the works relate to different aspects of reflection and inspiration. In this program, Britten and Stokowski interpret works by Purcell in their own idioms; Britten draws on his English musical roots to inspire an original work, Lachrymae and Britten himself is the source of inspiration in Pärt’s Cantus. In the case of the Vaughan Williams, Tippett and Walton works, the inspirations are other composers and literature. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe has been described in The Financial Times as “the best orchestra in Europe.” The COE was founded in 1981 and has a membership of 50 musicians from 15 countries who perform together mainly in continental Europe and occasionally in the US and Japan. Since its inception, it has appeared with the world’s leading conductors and soloists, and its recordings have consistently won the highest praise and international prizes, including three Gramophone “Record of the Year” awards.

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony; Darest thou now, O soul (2018)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony; Darest thou now, O soul (2018)

Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony; Darest thou now, O soul (2018)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 298 Mb | Total time: 70:53 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Hyperion | # CDA68245 | Recorded: 2017

Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform one of the mightiest of first symphonies ever written. Vaughan Williams's setting of Walt Whitman creates a very special sense of occasion. The coupling is Vaughan Williams's later, virtually unknown, setting of Whitman's ''Darest thou now, O soul'' for chorus and strings.

Nicola Benedetti - The Violin (2013)

Posted By: Designol
Nicola Benedetti - The Violin (2013)

Nicola Benedetti - The Violin (2013)
Vivaldi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Johannes Brahms, Arvo Pärt, Frédéric Chopin, P.I. Tchaikovsky
Jules Massenet, Max Bruch, Vittorio Monti, Nigel Hess, John Williams, Carlos Gardel

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 329 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 176 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Decca | # 478 5338 DH | Time: 01:16:06

Just 26 years old, Nicola Benedetti has been making chart-topping recordings for 10 years. This album celebrates the best of those recordings, and her other successes – from winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, to her 2012 best-selling album ‘The Silver Violin’, the highest charting classical instrumental album in the UK of the last two decades. A collection of great violin music – from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending to the Tchaikovsky and Bruch violin concertos and Arvo Part’s Spiegel Im Spiegel. Featuring brand new recordings – Brahms’ invigorating Hungarian Dance no. 5, Monti’s ever-popular Czardas, and Chopin’s emotional Nocturne in C# minor. The album includes Nicola performing with leading orchestras and conductors, as well as some of her favorite chamber players. This album showcases the incredible range of Nicola’s playing and demonstrates her wide appeal. In January 2013 Nicola was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music and charity.

Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)

Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players: An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 662 Mb | Total time: 159:21 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Signum Classics | # SIGCD 569 | Recorded: 2018

The four coronations of the twentieth century were enormous and extravagant. Replete with festive pageantry, these ceremonies were joyful celebrations of British music, employing tremendous forces. Choirs from across London and beyond were marshalled to provide a chorus of over 400 voices; a full-size symphony orchestra was squeezed into Westminster Abbey, whilst bands of fanfare trumpeters led the pomp and celebration.

Timothy Brown, The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sacred Choral Music (2010)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Timothy Brown, The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sacred Choral Music (2010)

Timothy Brown, The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sacred Choral Music (2010)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 253 Mb | Total time: 63:11 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.572465 | Recorded: 2009

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s sublime Mass in G minor reveals the composer’s absorbing interest in using the modal harmonic language and contrapuntal textures of the English late Renaissance to achieve a huge emotional and dynamic range. Undoubtedly the most technically demanding work on this disc is A Vision of Aeroplanes, a virtuosic motet for mixed chorus and organ. Several neglected works also feature here, including The Voice out of the Whirlwind, an anthem for mixed chorus and orchestra or organ, and Valiant-for-truth, one of several works based on Bunyan’s Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress.