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There Is Sweet Music - English Choral Songs 1890-1950

6/16/2011, 20 Tracks, 56:26

Featuring

  • John Rutter
  • Mark Padmore
  • Philip Sheffield
  • Nicholas Sears
  • Cambridge Singers
  • Charles Villiers Stanford
  • Frederick Delius
  • Edward Elgar
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams
  • Ernest Moeran
  • Percy Grainger
  • Edward T. Chapman
  • Gustav Holst
  • Edward C. Bairstow
  • Benjamin Britten

Did you know?

1/7

Historical Context

Choral music has always been prominent in English musical life, partly due to the national network of cathedral choirs, which saw a significant revival in the late 19th century.

Source: Booklet

Composition History

Benjamin Britten's Five Flower Songs were written as a silver wedding anniversary present for two friends, revealing his unexpected fondness for the part-song tradition.

Source: Booklet

Composition History

Both the Delius part-songs of 1917 and the Vaughan Williams Shakespeare Songs of 1951 were specifically written for amateur choirs to perform.

Source: Booklet

Compositional Technique

In Elgar's 'There is sweet music', the other-worldliness of Tennyson's lotos-eaters' paradise is symbolized by placing the female voices in A flat, a semitone removed from the male voices' G major.

Source: Booklet

Recording & Production

This recording was produced by Jillian White and recorded in the Great Hall of University College School, London, by the BBC Transcription Unit in February 1986.

Source: Booklet

Composer's Artistic Vision

Two important threads connecting the English composers on this album are a love of the human voice, especially the choral medium, and an intuitive responsiveness to poetry.

Source: Booklet

Historical Context

The rediscovery of English folk-song in the early 1900s by Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp, and others led to a steady flow of choral folk-song settings.

Source: Booklet

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©℗ 2011 Collegium