Composer: Edward Elgar, Arnold Bax
Performer: Rachel Nicholls, Joshua Ellicott, Jennifer France , Madeleine Shaw, Hallé Choir
Orchestra: Hallé Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Mark Elder
Number of Discs: 1
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hallé
Release: 2017
Size: 569 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Edward William Elgar:
The Spirit of England, for Soprano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80
01. I. The Fourth of August
02. II. To Women
03. III. For the Fallen
04. A Voice in the Wilderness (Une voix dans le désert), Op. 77
Grania and Diarmid, Op. 42 – Incidental Music
05. I. Introduction
06. II. Funeral March
07. III. Song ‘There are seven that pull the thread’
Arnold Edward Trevor Bax:
08. In Memoriam
The latest release in Hallé’s award winning series of recordings of works by Elgar couples his last great choral work with a fascinating collection of works which similarly remember the departed.
Previous Elgar choral releases of The Dream of Gerontius (CDHLD7520), The Kingdom (HLD7526) and The Apostles (CDHLD7534) were universally acclaimed, winning numerous awards, including a Gramophone Award for each release.
The largely overlooked The Spirit of England is arguably Elgar’s last great choral work. Thematically linked to The Dream of Gerontius the work sets texts from WWI poets and was premiered in sections during 1916 and 1917. In tone it is close to the melancholy of the Cello Concerto and Britten referred to its music as displaying “a personal tenderness and grief” as well as “genuine splendour”.
The melodrama (spoken words with musical accompaniment) of A Voice in the Wilderness movingly depicts the contrasting moods of the desolate and subdued Western Front by night and the soaring, aspiring lines given to a war-time Belgian peasant girl.
The remaining two works on the album present works inspired by Irish literature. Grania and Diarmid was a play based on tales of Irish mythology.
Elgar’s music for the play, a story of tragic entangled love, was described by playright W.B. Yeats as “wonderful in its heroic melancholy”.
Bax’s rarely performed orchestral work In Memoriam is subtitled ‘An Irish Elegy’. It reflects the composer’s passionate interest in, and love for, Ireland, her literature and her tragic early twentieth century history – including the Easter Rising of April 1916 and the subsequent execution of some of its leaders which deeply shocked Bax. The resultant music contracts outbursts of anger with episodes featuring melody of profound sadness and lyricism.