VENABLES The Song of the Severn
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ian Venables
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Signum Classics
Magazine Review Date: AW2015
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 70
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SIGCD424
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
The Song of the Severn |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
The Pine Boughs Past Music |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Flying Crooked |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
(A) Kiss |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
(An) Invite, to Eternity, Movement: Evening Bells |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
The Night has a Thousand Eyes |
Ian Venables, Composer
Carducci Quartet Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Break, break, break |
Ian Venables, Composer
Graham Lloyd, Piano Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Midnight Lamentation |
Ian Venables, Composer
Graham Lloyd, Piano Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
The Hippo |
Ian Venables, Composer
Graham Lloyd, Piano Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Love's Voice, Movement: The Invitation to the Gondola |
Ian Venables, Composer
Graham Lloyd, Piano Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Frutti di Mare |
Ian Venables, Composer
Graham Lloyd, Piano Ian Venables, Composer Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Author: Andrew Achenbach
Scarcely less rewarding is The Pine Boughs Past Music, a deeply felt tribute from 2010 to the troubled genius of Gloucester-born Ivor Gurney; three of Gurney’s finest poems (‘My heart makes songs on lonely roads’, ‘Soft Rain’ and ‘The Wind’) draw from Venables some acutely sensitive invention, and the cycle ends with a touchingly affirmative setting of an elegy by Leonard Clark (with the bells of Gloucester Cathedral pealing across the Severn meadows). We also get a sequence of nine exquisite songs (four with string quartet backing, the remaining five with piano), each of which demonstrate Venables’s unfailing ability to illuminate the text, indisputable flair for melody and impeccable craftsmanship.
Prospective purchasers can rest assured that Roderick Williams is in stellar form throughout (his lustrous tone beautifully captured by the microphones), and he enjoys outstandingly sympathetic support from Graham J Lloyd (whose pianism is of a very high order) and the Carducci Quartet (one of the most talented emerging ensembles around at present). The composer supplies his own personable and insightful booklet-notes; full texts are included. No lover of the early-20th-century English art song or pastoral tradition should fail to investigate this notable issue.
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