British Choral Music

[BBMmk2]

Now this is a genre that's most varied indeed. From The Tudors, eg Byrd Tallis etc to the modern works. I intend to play as much as I can this next month. I have quite a wide variety too.

My personal favourite, is Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, conducted by Barbirolli. although I have Boult and Hickox and intend to buy sir Andrew Davis's recent account on Chandos.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If you allow "soloistic", vocal ensemble works, too, you can go back to Britain's greatest composer, Dunstable (and his successors in the Eton Choirbooks, Old Hall Manuscripts etc).

Although works for smaller forces are what most attract me these days, I'd agree that DoG is my own favourite of the "huge-choir-soloists-and-orchestra" genre.

And, with such excellent new cycles of the RVW Symphonies coming from Manze and Elder, I wish somebody would also give us a comparably impressive new set of his Choral works.

[rauschwerk]

And, with such excellent new cycles of the RVW Symphonies coming from Manze and Elder, I wish somebody would also give us a comparably impressive new set of his Choral works.

Richard Hickox made excellent versions of Hodie, Five Tudor Portraits, Sancta Civitas and Dona Nobis Pacem. Are these not RVW's biggest choral/orchestral scores apart from the Sea Symphony? No doubt he would have done more had he lived.

[jean]

...the Eton Choirbooks...

If only there were more than one!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Richard Hickox made excellent versions of Hodie, Five Tudor Portraits, Sancta Civitas and Dona Nobis Pacem. Are these not RVW's biggest choral/orchestral scores apart from the Sea Symphony? No doubt he would have done more had he lived.

Nice as it would be to consider recordings from twenty years ago (from a conductor who died six years ago) as "new", that wasn't quite what I had in mind. (Any more than one might regard the Handley symphony cycle as "as new" as the Manze & Elder recordings.)

And what do you find lacking in the shorter choral/orchestral scores, by the way?

[BBMmk2]

Yes, I have The sixteen recording of The Eton Choirbook. Excellant series there. Havn't Naxos done one or recording them?

[BBMmk2]

What would people play on a night like tonight?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If only there were more than one!

Indeed. (I was thinking of the three volumes of the Musica Britannica edition.)

Yes, I have The sixteen recording of The Eton Choirbook. Excellant series there. Havn't Naxos done one or recording them?

Yes - by the rather wonderful ensemble Tonus Peregrinus (who also did a splendid Dunstable CD for the label). There's also the Huelgas Ensemble on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (good to hear a non-British ensemble championing this wonderful European Music):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Eton-Choirbook-Huelgas-Ensemble/dp/B009PXNFQY/ref=pd_sim_m_h__1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1N8MAA7MQKAQHZFF5R3V

... and a(n ongoing?) set by Stephen Darlington and the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford on AVIE.

I had thought that Jordi Savall had recorded a disc, too, but that must have been in a dream!

[Roehre]

... Britain's greatest composer, Dunstable (and his successors in the Eton Choirbooks, Old Hall Manuscripts etc)......

without Dunstable the Flemish-Franco polyphony would be definitely different - never before or after has a composer from these isles had such an influence on the course of the history of music.

[jean]

No indeed! Wonderful as they are, the composers of the Eton Choirbook had no influence at all.

[EdgeleyRob]

So much of this stuff is dear to me.
As well as the usual suspects,some works that may be unfamiliar to forumites,but are fine pieces IMO.

Stanford - Requiem.
Parry - Job.
Lloyd - Symphonic Mass.
Dyson - Canterbury Pilgrims.

[BBMmk2]

So much of this stuff is dear to me.
As well as the usual suspects,some works that may be unfamiliar to forumites,but are fine pieces IMO.

Stanford - Requiem.
Parry - Job.
Lloyd - Symphonic Mass.
Dyson - Canterbury Pilgrims.

Parry, Job?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Parry, Job?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parry-Job-Sir-Hubert/dp/B00000DLY2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1420288280&sr=1-1&keywords=parry%2C+job

(no clips on youTube, it seems, alas.)

[EdgeleyRob]

Parry, Job?

Job's a good 'un.

Adrian Boult and RVW rated it,George Bernard Shaw didn't

Ferney beat me to it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

SNAP!

GBS was an entertaining writer on Music, but not as consistently reliable: he didn't like Brahms, either, the twonk!