The Hills of Dreamland: Elgar - Orchestral Songs
£21.80 £18.53
save £3.27 (15%)
special offer ending 27/05/2024
In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day
Despatch Information
This despatch estimate is based on information from both our own stock and the UK supplier's stock.
If ordering multiple items, we will aim to send everything together so the longest despatch estimate will apply to the complete order.
If you would rather receive certain items more quickly, please place them on a separate order.
If any unexpected delays occur, we will keep you informed of progress via email and not allow other items on the order to be held up.
If you would prefer to receive everything together regardless of any delay, please let us know via email.
Pre-orders will be despatched as close as possible to the release date.
Label: Somm
Cat No: SOMMCD2712
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 31st August 2018
Contents
Works
As I laye a-thynkyngeDry those fair, those crystal eyes
Follow the Colours
Grania and Diarmid, op.42: Incidental Music
Lieder (7)
Pleading, op.48 no.1
Song Cycle, op.59
Songs (3), op.16
The Millwheel: Winter
The Pipes of Pan
The River, op.60 no.2
The Torch, op.60 no.1
The Wind at Dawn
Artists
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)Henk Neven (baritone)
Nathalie de Montmollin
Barry Collett (piano)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Conductor
Barry WordsworthWorks
As I laye a-thynkyngeDry those fair, those crystal eyes
Follow the Colours
Grania and Diarmid, op.42: Incidental Music
Lieder (7)
Pleading, op.48 no.1
Song Cycle, op.59
Songs (3), op.16
The Millwheel: Winter
The Pipes of Pan
The River, op.60 no.2
The Torch, op.60 no.1
The Wind at Dawn
Artists
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)Henk Neven (baritone)
Nathalie de Montmollin
Barry Collett (piano)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Conductor
Barry WordsworthAbout
The Hills of Dreamland takes its title from a line in Elgar’s well-known setting, beautifully still and beseeching, of Arthur L Salmon’s Pleading.
Historically the least regarded part of Elgar’s output, his songs contain a treasure-trove of vocal gems and here receive performances of insight, imagination and emotional directness.
The Op.59 Song Cycle is an exemplary case in point, by turns quietly radiant, touchingly nostalgic and achingly melancholic. Two settings of poems by Elgar’s wife – the richly orchestrated The Wind at Dawn and celebratory The King’s Way (which borrows a tune from his Fourth Pomp and Circumstance March) – show Elgar at his most evocative and ebullient.
Sombre and powerful, The Pipes of Pan boasts colourful imagery and driving rhythmic energy, The River and The Torch wholly Elgarian in their wonderful sonorities.
A first recording of the orchestral version of the marching song Follow the Colours shows Elgar at his most patriotic.
The complete incidental music for a 1901 staging of WB Yeats’ Grania and Diarmid offers a rare opportunity to experience the full gamut of Elgar’s moving and dramatic evocation of a timeless tale of love in the ancient Irish myth.
A Bonus Disc of recordings made under the auspices of the Elgar Society showcases soprano Nathalie de Montmollin and pianist Barry Collett in a collection of piano-accompanied songs. It includes first recordings of the piano version of ‘Winter’ from The Mill Wheel (with its churning left-hand patterns and a text by the composer’s wife) and the world-weary tread of Muleteer’s Serenade, setting words from Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
Sound/Video
Paused
-
1Song Cycle op.59 - Oh, soft was the song
-
2Song Cycle op.59 - Was it some golden star?
-
3Song Cycle op.59 - Twilight
-
4Song Cycle op.59 - The Wind at Dawn
-
5Song Cycle op.59 - The Pipes of Pan
-
6Two Songs op.60 - The Torch
-
7Two Songs op.60 - The River
-
8Pleading op.48
-
9Follow the Colours: Marching Song for Soldiers
-
10The King's Way
-
11Incidental Music to Grania and Diarmid - Incidental Music
-
12Incidental Music to Grania and Diarmid - Funeral March
-
13Incidental Music to Grania and Diarmid - Song: There are seven that pull the thread
-
14Like to the Damask Rose
-
15The Shepherd's Song
-
16Dry those fair, those crystal eyes
-
17The Mill Wheel: Winter
-
18Muleteer's Serenade
-
19As I laye a-thynkynge
-
20Queen Mary's Song
-
21The Torch
-
22The River
-
23In the Dawn
-
24Speak, music
Europadisc Review
Firstly, the orchestral songs are shared between two excellent young singers, mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and baritone Henk Neven, both in lustrous voice, thereby offering timbral and registral variety to this under-appreciated corner of Elgar’s output. Neven’s voice has a grainy, youthful nobility to it which perfectly suits this repertoire, his enunciation is immaculate, and he gives memorable accounts of the three Op.59 songs of 1909 (a planned further three were never written, which explains the songs’ strange numbering). He really enters into the spirit of the darkly-hued The Pipes of Pan (1900-01), and even the gratingly jingoistic Follow the Colours, a 1908 Empire Day song orchestrated in 1914, receiving its first recording here, benefits from his wholehearted commitment.
Kathryn Rudge’s focused but full-bodied mezzo brings clarity and power to a superbly atmospheric account of The Wind at Dawn (1888, orchestrated in 1912), and the two Op.10 songs (The Torch and The River, both settings of Elgar’s own stylised verses) are just as memorable. Her rendition of Pleading, composed in 1908 and probably orchestrated as a purely instrumental miniature, is supremely sensitive and as good an argument as you’ll ever hear for its performance with voice. It takes quite something to rescue the absurd adaptation of the fourth Pomp and Circumstance March to Alice Elgar’s doggerel marking the opening of The Kingsway in central London, but Rudge – with the sterling support of the BBC Concert Orchestra which distinguishes the whole disc – somehow manages it, and those who respond to this sort of heart-on-sleeve patriotism will no doubt enjoy it hugely.
Wordsworth and the orchestra come into their own in the Grania and Diarmid music, bringing an almost Sibelius-like evocation of nature and ancient times to the Incidental Music and Funeral March, and then accompanying Kathryn Rudge matchlessly in the mysterious song ‘There are seven that pull the thread’ (an item not included on the rival Chandos disc, and well worth hearing in its own right). This whole disc, brilliantly sung and with exceptionally vivid and splendidly balanced accompaniments to which every section of the orchestra contributes, is enormously engaging from start to finish, and a worthy rival to the BBCSO/Davis disc.
What makes it even more attractive, however, is the generous addition of a bonus featuring soprano Nathalie de Montmollin accompanied by Barry Collett in a selection of Elgar’s songs for voice and piano. They include such miniature gems as Like to the Damask Rose and Queen Mary’s Song, as well as the chivalric ballad As I laye a-thynkynge, and the original piano versions of The Torch and The River, making for fascinating comparisons with their orchestral versions on disc 1. De Montmollin brings a gentle radiance to these glimpses of Elgar in more intimate mood, and Collett negotiates the often awkward accompaniments with unassuming panache and musical intelligence. Notable inclusions are two further premiere recordings, the Mill Wheel song Winter by the future Alice Elgar, and the Cervantes setting Muleteer’s Serenade, both of which were unpublished and reused in Elgar’s cantata King Olaf, but now lovingly restored to their original form by John Norris.
Like so many of Somm’s previous Elgar releases, this generous collection of songs (two discs priced as one) is essential listening for Elgarians everywhere, enhanced by excellent recordings (the piano songs performed live at Southampton’s Turner Sims Concert Hall), and fine notes from Barry Collett and fellow Elgar expert Andrew Neill. An outstanding addition to the catalogue.
Error on this page? Let us know here
Need more information on this product? Click here