COMPOSERS: Grainger
LABELS: Chandos
WORKS: Choral Works
PERFORMER: Mark Padmore (tenor), Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Penelope Thwaites (piano)Joyful Company of Singers, City of London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 9499
Every track of this third collection in Chandos’s Grainger Edition is memorable. It is an attractive mix of well-known items like ‘Molly on the Shore’ and ‘Handel in the Strand’, presented with lesser-known pieces in a package where care for detail extends to singing in the correct dialects, which adds conviction to such songs as ‘I’m Seventeen Come Sunday’ and ‘Six Dukes Went Afishin’’. All the performers are excellent and five premier recordings include the rousing ‘Marching Tune’; ‘Anchor Song’, a bracing Kipling setting; ‘After-word’, a haunting tune for wordless chorus expressing Grainger’s love for Karen Holten; and a sensitive setting of ‘Early One Morning’ (boasting imaginative trumpet and violin solos), movingly sung by Stephen Varcoe. Heartily recommended. Ian Lace
Grainger: Choral Works
Every track of this third collection in Chandos’s Grainger Edition is memorable. It is an attractive mix of well-known items like ‘Molly on the Shore’ and ‘Handel in the Strand’, presented with lesser-known pieces in a package where care for detail extends to singing in the correct dialects, which adds conviction to such songs as ‘I’m Seventeen Come Sunday’ and ‘Six Dukes Went Afishin’’.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:38 pm