Elgar, Bax: For the Fallen
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Label: Halle
Cat No: CDHLL7544
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 3rd February 2017
Contents
Works
In MemoriamA Voice in the Wilderness, op.77
Grania and Diarmid, op.42: Incidental Music
The Spirit of England, op.80
Artists
Rachel Nicholls (soprano)Joshua Ellicott (narrator)
Jennifer France (soprano)
Madeleine Shaw (mezzo)
Halle Choir
Halle Orchestra
Conductor
Mark ElderWorks
In MemoriamA Voice in the Wilderness, op.77
Grania and Diarmid, op.42: Incidental Music
The Spirit of England, op.80
Artists
Rachel Nicholls (soprano)Joshua Ellicott (narrator)
Jennifer France (soprano)
Madeleine Shaw (mezzo)
Halle Choir
Halle Orchestra
Conductor
Mark ElderAbout
The largely overlooked The Spirit of England is arguably Elgar’s last great choral work. Thematically linked to The Dream of Gerontius the work sets texts from WWI poets and was premiered in sections during 1916 and 1917. In tone it is close to the melancholy of the Cello Concerto and Britten referred to its music as displaying “a personal tenderness and grief” as well as “genuine splendour”.
The melodrama (spoken words with musical accompaniment) of A Voice in the Wilderness movingly depicts the contrasting moods of the desolate and subdued Western Front by night and the soaring, aspiring lines given to a war-time Belgian peasant girl.
The remaining two works on the album present works inspired by Irish literature. Grania and Diarmid was a play based on tales of Irish mythology. Elgar’s music for the play, a story of tragic entangled love, was described by playright W.B. Yeats as “wonderful in its heroic melancholy”.
Bax’s rarely performed orchestral work In Memoriam is subtitled ‘An Irish Elegy’. It reflects the composer’s passionate interest in, and love for, Ireland, her literature and her tragic early twentieth century history – including the Easter Rising of April 1916 and the subsequent execution of some of its leaders which deeply shocked Bax. The resultant music contracts outbursts of anger with episodes featuring melody of profound sadness and lyricism.
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