Composer: Robin Milford
Performer: Phillida Bannister, Raphael Terroni
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0009
Release: 2008
Size: 259 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
My Lady’s Pleasure
01. I. Pastorale
02. II. Gavotte
03. III. Jig
Four Hardy Songs
04. No. 2. The Colour
05. No. 4. Tolerance
06. Cradle Song
07. Daybreak
Reputation Square
08. I. Matthew’s and Welch’s
09. II. Reputation Square
10. III. George’s and the New Wells Hornpipe
11. III. Trim the French
12. IV. Jack in his Trousers
13. V. Jupiter in the Clouds
4 Songs
14. No. 1. So Sweet Love Seemed
15. No. 2. Elegy
16. No. 4. Love on my Heart
4 Seasonable Songs
17. No. 2. Summer. Pleasure It Is
18. No. 4. Winter. This Endris Night
Prelude, Air and Finale, “on a well-known mordent”
19. I. Prelude
20. II. Air
21. III. Finale
Swan Songs
22. No. 1. Song of St Mary the Virgin
23. No. 2. The Song of Simeon
24. No. 3. Idlness
25. No. 4. Christmas Day
26. No. 5. In Cornwall
27. No. 6. Expectans expectavi
28. No. 7. The Holy Tide
29. No. 8. The Glance
30. No. 9. Sleep
31. Jenifer’s Jingle
Days and Moments
32. II. Autumn: No. 4. An Epitaph
Milford’s compositions fall into three main periods – apprenticeship, maturity, and what one might call ‘deeper maturity with experimentation’ – which can be identified with stages in his life.
This CD showcases piano music and songs from across four decades of Milford’s prolific and varied career, providing examples of all three periods of his musical development.
The youthful expectation and promise of the 1920s is captured here in My Lady’s Pleasure – exquisite folk dances for piano.
The happy maturity Milford found in the 1930s, shown in the more complex stylistic development of Prelude, Air and Finale The darkness that descended upon Milford in the 1940s and ’50s, brought on by war and personal tragedy, culminated in his eventual suicide in 1959 – a period represented on this CD by the moving Swan Songs.