Composer: Sir Edward Elgar
Performer: Proteus Ensemble
Conductor: Stephen Shellard
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avie
Catalogue: AV2716
Release: 2024
Size: 1.94 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. The Fountain, Op. 71, No. 2
02. Serenade, Op. 73, No. 2
03. Death on the Hills, Op. 72
04. To her beneath whose stedfast star (from No. 10 “Choral Songs in honour of Her Majesty Queen Victoria”)
05. Angelus (Tuscany), Op. 56
06. Deep in my soul, Op. 53, No. 2
07. Good Morrow (a simple carol for His Majesty’s happy recovery)
08. O wild West Wind!, Op. 53, No. 3
09. My love dwelt in a Northern land, Op. 18, No. 3
10. As torrents in summer (from “Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf”, Op. 30)
11. They are at rest (Elegy)
12. Love, Op. 18, No. 2
13. The Shower, Op. 71, No. 1
14. There is sweet music, Op. 53, No. 1
15. I sing the birth
16. Love’s Tempest, Op. 73, No. 1
17. O happy eyes, Op. 18, No. 1
There Is Sweet Music is the idyllic title of the first AVIE release by the eight-voice Proteus Ensemble and their conductor Stephen Shellard, which surveys a selection of relatively rare part-songs by Sir Edward Elgar. Elgar maintained his dedication to composing part-songs throughout his life and imbued each of them with an inimitable character.
Like the composer’s celebrated “Enigma Variations”, his part-songs bear an array of inspirations and dedicatees, including his wife Caroline Alice who penned the poem of the album’s closer, “O Happy Eyes”, shortly after she and Elgar were married. This early work became a companion to the song “Love,” written eight years later and also dedicated to Caroline Alice. Elgar turned to famous poets and peers – Lord Byron for “Deep in my soul”, Percy Bysshe Shelley for “O wild West Wind!”, and Alfred Lord Tennyson whose poem “The Lotos-Eaters” provides the album’s title track. English translations of Russian poems lend themselves to “Death on the Hills”, “Love’s Tempest” and “Serenade”. Elgar frequently found inspiration in Italy, where he composed “Angelus’, a song dedicated to his close friend Alice Stuart Wortley whom he called “Windflower” and whose spirit is enshrined in his Violin Concerto. Stephen Shellard’s Elgarian epiphany began in 1990 when he joined Dr. Donald Hunt’s choir at Worcester Cathedral as an Alto Lay Clerk. Dr. Hunt’s inspired and devoted expertise in performances of works by Worcester’s most famous musical son cast a life-long spell on Stephen that manifests itself in these beautiful performances with his Proteus Ensemble.