Land of Heart's Desire

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Marjory Kennedy-Fraser

Label: Helios

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 72

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: CDA66988

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Witchery Milking Croon Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Uncanny Mannikin of the Cattlefold Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Skye Water-Kelpie's Lullaby Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Harper Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Cockle Gatherer Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Birds at the Fairy Fulling Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Uist Cattle Croon Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Crone's Creel Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Islay Reaper's Song Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: A Spinning Song Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Ship at Sea Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Sea Wandering Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Sea-Longing (arr Bantock) Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Reiving Ship Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Birlinn of the White Shoulders (arr Bantock) Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Heart of Fire-Love Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Coolin of Rhum Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Leaping Galley Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Isle of my Heart Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Kishmul's Galley Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Sleeps the noon in the deep blue sky Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Wild Swan Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: The Black Loorgin Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Dance to your Shadow Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Aignish on the Machair Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Land of Heart's Desire Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: An Eriskay Love Lilt Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Loch Broom Love Song Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Loch Leven Love Lament Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Caristiona Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: An Eriskay Lullaby Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Kirsteen Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: A Thirteenth-Century Lover's Lilt Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
Songs of the Hebrides, Movement: Benbecula Bridal Procession Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Lisa Milne, Soprano
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Composer
Sioned Williams, Harp
You need to know your way around the Gramophone Database to find anything relating to this. “Kennedy-Fraser” (“Fraser, K. M.”) does not show up, nor “Songs of the Hebrides” nor even “Hebrides, songs of”. “Eriskay” and “Kishmul” in the title index alone provide a reference or two. Yet after all some of these are well-known songs, the Eriskay Love Lilt most famous of all, followed by Kishmul’s Galley and Land of Heart’s Desire, which gives the present disc its title. The songs were collected, edited and published in five volumes between 1909 and 1927. Ernest Newman, quoted in Ted Perry’s introductory notes, welcomed them as preserving melodies so perfect that “Schubert and Hugo Wolf would have knelt and kissed the hands of the men who conceived them”. So clearly the record library has a gap on its shelves, and not for the first time it is the brave and excellent Hyperion that fills it.
The style, whether of arrangement or performance, is not one that will satisfy all. Modern folk-people look askance at drawing-room folk-music, and that is what this is. A cultivated voice in well-articulated Queen’s English (albeit interspersed with Gaelic) sings in regular time and without personal spur-of-the-moment inflexions; the verses themselves are laid out and accompanied like art-song. The accompaniment by harp rather than piano will be welcomed in these quarters (and elsewhere) as a step in the right direction, but the provision of motifs and the harmonies supporting them would be less surprising to the masters of the Lied than to the islanders who first made up the songs. With this caveat the work of singer and harpist can be praised warmly. Lisa Milne’s fresh, well-defined soprano responds both to the gentler mode and (as in The Ship at Sea and The Coolin of Rhum) to the bold intervals and vigorous sentiments as they arise. Recording is first-rate, presentation almost likewise. Elucidation of “Ho mo Mhauri laghach” and other mysteries would not have been taken amiss, and though 1857 is given as the year of her birth I can’t seem to find disclosure of the date (1930) of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s death.'

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