CDLX 7261

CDLX 7262

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch plays in his warm-hearted, romantic style this fascinating exploration of unknown cello concertos by York Bowen, Alan Bush and Havergal Brian. York Bowen calls his big romantic piece a Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra, while Alan Bush terms his four-movement virtuoso vehicle a ‘Suite’. Brian’s Cello Concerto dates from 1964 but is in an unexpectedly light and engaging style quite different to his writing in most of the symphonies, which will surely find him new friends. Three notable discoveries, and all who hear them will be wondering why they have not been recorded before.

2 CD SET - CDLX 7263

The four Delius works contained on this new Dutton Epoch release are seldom heard, yet each is of outstanding musical interest and contains passages of characteristic beauty. Life’s Dance teems with an almost Straussian richness of thematic material, and calls for a degree of orchestral virtuosity that is rarely found in Delius. The more extended Poem of Life and Love (receiving its premiere recording) had to be slightly reconstructed and was first published only in 1999; it is the last in the composer’s great series of works for orchestra alone. At the end of his life, Delius extracted some of its most haunting sections to form A Song of Summer. The Suites derived from two of Delius’s six operas serve to rescue wonderful music, which, because of the rarity of productions of the works themselves, is only occasionally heard. That for his first opera, Irmelin, was arranged by Sir Thomas Beecham and contains the kind of melodic and orchestral richness that we associate with the ever-popular Florida Suite. David Matthews has selected some of the more extended orchestral passages from Delius’s operatic masterpiece, A Village Romeo and Juliet, to form a representative suite from this haunting and heart-breaking score. For those who do not know the opera, this generous selection will come as something of a revelation.

CDLX 7264

In a long and distinguished career, Stephen Dodgson (b.1924) has produced works in almost every form. An acute ear and sharp sense for instrumental sonorities have drawn him particularly to chamber music. His nine acknowledged string quartets (four more were withdrawn) are among the most important written by a modern English composer, and range from works of an almost Bartókian intensity to pieces in which his light touch and sometimes mischievous wit show in music owing much to early English music and a love of the dance. His most recent quartet, the Ninth, is a fine example of how serious things can be said in a light-hearted manner. It also shows how outstanding craftsmanship is used by a true composer in the service of music and not for display, to aid and not confuse the listener. His love of virtuosity is, characteristically, shown in the dazzlingly effective music he writes for instrumentalists whose skill and character he admires, as with the Flute Quintet. In the Clarinet Quintet, another virtuoso work, the soloist is also asked to be by turns ‘bright and skittish’ as well as ‘sweet and songful’ and ‘subdued and meditative’. Contrast is a typical ingredient of Dodgson’s music, as when the finale of his richly textured Sextet ends with a dance over the formality of a subtle chaconne.

2 CD SET - CDLX 7265

Here, recorded for the first time, is music from seven of the thirty-four films scored by British composer Doreen Carwithen (1922-2003) between 1947 and 1954. Carwithen’s concert overture ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another) had established her as a force to be reckoned with in 1946 when it was premiered by the LPO under Sir Adrian Boult. In 1947, she was the only female composer chosen from the RAM to be apprentice to the newly instituted J Arthur Rank Apprenticeship Scheme, which taught the art of film music. Carwithen went on to become Muir Mathieson’s assistant for two years, and had the guiding hand of renowned film composer William Alwyn (1905-1985), whom she later married. The films represented here range from drama (To the Public Danger, Boys in Brown, Mantrap, Three Cases of Murder) and the ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure yarn Men of Sherwood Forest to pictorial informative documentaries (East Anglian Holiday, Travel Royal). Carwithen is adept in providing the right mood and scoring for each of these titles. From the gentle pastoralism of East Anglian Holiday and the swashbuckling Men of Sherwood Forest through to the bold and dramatic scores for Boys in Brown, Mantrap, Three Cases of Murder and To the Public Danger, an enjoyable and varied listening experience is ensured.

CDLX 7266

This is Dutton Epoch’s first modern Havergal Brian programme, recorded by the brilliant Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted with sympathy and powerful projection by Martyn Brabbins. The large array of percussion in Symphony No.10 is caught in demonstration-worthy sound, as are the mighty climaxes and Brian’s quiet, atmospheric Sibelian interludes. In contrast, the gentler textures of Brian’s delightfully tuneful English Suite No.3, heard here on CD for the first time, are sympathetically conveyed in a rewarding acoustic. This is involving music on a large scale, which addresses a far wider audience than many more specialist Brian programmes. The two complete discoveries are the dramatic Thirtieth Symphony and the brilliant Concerto for Orchestra. Both are well worth investigation, and the performances by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Brabbins place them memorably in Brian’s still emerging achievement of his time. This is a CD for all music lovers who respond to powerful orchestral scores in a tonal but individual idiom.

"Four rarely heard and welcome works by Havergal Brian figure on this release: one from his middle years, and three from late in life - the Symphony no.30 from his 90s"
"Brabbins brings to them [the works] elegant phrasing, clarity to all parts, and a refined ear for orchestral blend."
"... the tonal beauty of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is a decided plus, and Brabbins's conducting does much to establish the strange and inexplicably right-sounding world of Brian's music."
"I have no hesitancy in recommending this disc ..."
Barry Brenesal, Fanfare, September/October 2011

CDLX 7267

In recent years, and towards the end of his long life, Dutton Epoch has created gramophone history by issuing an extensive series of premiere recordings of the music of British composer Richard Arnell (1917-2009), including his seven symphonies, several concertos and ballets, other orchestral works and a CD of his chamber music. Every one of these releases has received considerable critical acclaim and commercial success. Arnell’s music – widely admired by such artists as Sir Thomas Beecham, Leopold Stokowski, Andor Foldes, John Ogdon and many other international figures – had, in its profoundly tonality-based language, fallen foul of the musical fashions regarding new music of the era extending from the late 1950s to the rise of post-minimalism, when Arnell's superbly conceived and original compositions were rediscovered for later generations, who have responded with notable enthusiasm. This new recording in our Arnell series contains the first five of his six string quartets. They are works that declare him to be one of the most significant British composers for the medium in the 20th century, and which drew from Hans Keller, no less, the comment that Arnell’s Fifth Quartet was “one of the extremely few genuine string quartets written by an outsider... Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Smetana and Schoenberg were in Arnell-like command of the genre’s textural variety and contrasts.” The performances by The Tippett Quartet are of the highest standards.

CDLX 7268

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CDLX 7269

CDLX 7270

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"David Owen Norris breathes new life into recently discovered manuscripts"
"... a delightful collection of music drawn from 17 music albums that belonged to Jane Austen and other ladies of the family."
"The piano used is a Broadwood instrument of 1817, signed by composer J.B.Cramer. If these two names ring a bell it is because you have come across them in 'Emma', published just two years earlier."
"David Owen Norris projects a wide spectrum of emotion on the instrument ... both fresh and redolent of the bygone age."
"The soprano, Amanda Pitt, delivers her items with sincerity and warmth, as well as a wide-ranging variety of sentiment."
"This is an enjoyable programme, suitable for a wider audience beyond the specialist."
The Regency World of Jane Austen magazine, September 2011

CDLX 7271

This remarkable programme presents songs and orchestral music by Finnish composer Toivo Kuula (1883-1918), a pupil of Sibelius who died young. Best-known for his songs and choral music, Kuula’s arresting orchestral music draws heavily on folk legends and Ostrobothnian folksong and constitutes some of the most striking Finnish music of its time. Renowed soprano Susan Gritton and the BBC Concert Orchestra under the inspired baton of Martyn Brabbins give spellbinding accounts of this gloriously colourful repertoire.

CDLX 7272

Full song text in booklet (both original Finnish and an English translation)

The long-lived French composer Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) created many of his most impressive and influential works in the first two decades of the twentieth century, equally gorgeous in their piano versions (four hands or two pianos) as for the orchestra. Pianists Leslie De’Ath and Anya Alexeyev have recorded a ripe selection for this 2-CD set, all but two of which are world premiere recordings in these versions. Here the decadent sound world of La tragédie de Salomé, influential on Stravinsky and Diaghilev, is the most familiar but the charm and colour of the ballet music Le petit elfe ‘Ferme-l’oeil’ (The Little Fairy ‘Sleepy-eyes’), a touching evocation of childhood, has a charm all its own. These and various other pieces complete a most enjoyable traversal of Schmitt’s piano music, presented here in immaculate, heartfelt performances.

2 CD SET - CDLX 7273

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Please quote catalogue no. CDLX 7273

Dutton Epoch explores the music of French composer Benjamin Godard (1849-1895), until now known only for his violin concertos, in this disc featuring his equally delectable First Piano Concerto. Dating from 1875, this substantial four-movement work is brought brilliantly to life by pianist Victor Sangiorgio with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates. It is accompanied by the showpiece Introduction et Allegro for piano and orchestra of 1880, and the Symphonie Orientale of 1884, which reflects the highpoint of French Orientalism. Lovers of tuneful, romantic orchestral music will respond to these vividly imagined scores, all of which are world premiere recordings.

CDLX 7274

After the success of Dutton Epoch’s recording of Benjamin Godard’s piano concertos, Dutton Epoch’s International Series now revives the delightful piano concertos of Charles-Marie Widor, stylishly played by Martin Roscoe. Written during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Widor’s piano concertos were performed by several of the finest French pianists of the day, yet for some unaccountable reason have dropped from the repertoire. This is not heavy romantic material but delightfully and colourfully scored music. The First Concerto from 1876 is lyrical, exhibiting an almost Chopinesque pianism. Equally as enchanting is the Fantaisie pour piano et orchestre, which pianist Martin Roscoe treats with his customary singing touch. But this is a varied programme, and in the Second Piano Concerto of 1905 we find Widor essaying music that more closely integrates soloist and orchestra. All in all this is a memorable and many-sided musical journey.

Conductor Ronald Corp’s survey of a dozen of the shorter works given by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra between the Wars, is here played with great enthusiasm by its successor the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The mix of short symphonic works and the tuneful light music Dan Godfrey played on the pier and on his 78-rpm recordings is striking and makes for a delightful programme equally appealing to lovers of both light music and orchestral music of the 1920s. Hérold’s popular Overture Zampa sets the scene. World premiere recordings include Percy Whitlock’s brilliant Carillion for organ and orchestra, Armstrong Gibbs’s tuneful ballet music from Maeterlinck’s 1921 London hit The Betrothal and Ina Boyle’s prize-winning Baxian tone poem The Magic Harp of 1919. Dan Godfrey was notable for championing women composers, and as well as Ina Boyle, Ronald Corp’s programme includes Dame Ethel Smyth’s tuneful overture to her opera The Boatswain’s Mate. Also from an opera of that time is the orchestral version of the Love Duet from Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, which has not been recorded since the 1920s. Similarly evocative of the 1921 London theatre is the charming, scented violin solo In an Eastern Garden from Sir Landon Ronald’s music for the play The Garden of Allah. These are set in context with half-a-dozen surviving light music scores including Byron Brooke’s scintillating Gee Whizz! This is a sparkling and entertaining xylophone solo brilliantly played here by Matt King. Other light music scores include Montague Birch’s Dance of the Nymphs and Intermezzo (Pizzicati), Howard Flynn’s novelty fox-trot Clatter of the Clogs, Ludwig Pleier’s Karlsbad’s Dolls’ Dance and Cecil White’s A Sierra Melody. Once favourites on dim old 78s, hearing them again in modern recordings is an invigorating musical experience, and Ronald Corp and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra catch the élan and charm of this music.

Dutton Epoch’s pioneering Holbrooke series reaches its third volume, which couples Amy Dickson in the Saxophone Concerto – the first British concerto for the instrument – with the extended ballet Aucassin and Nicolette, the latter forgotten since its run at Golders Green Hippodrome before the War. In both these sunny scores we forget the grim, operatic Holbrooke evoking dark Celtic legends and revel in this tuneful music reminding us that Holbrooke enjoyed considerable success as a composer of light music. Anton Dolin recalled that Holbrooke’s ballet long-remained one of the most popular items in the repertoire of the Markova-Dolin Company: “It was a simple love story, delicately expressed and enchantingly staged.” Here we have a score brimming with tuneful light-hearted numbers, critics at the time referring to “one of the pleasantest things he has done” and “music of great melodic charm.” Holbrooke’s music is coupled with Richard Rodney Bennett’s delightful Seven Country Dances, setting tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master of 1651. Originally written for oboe and strings, in Richard Rodney Bennett’s previously unrecorded saxophone version soloist Amy Dickson catches to perfection both aspects of the score: the boisterous and the achingly melancholic. As conductor George Vass remarks: “Playford’s tunes are merely starting points round which Bennett weaves ardent rhapsodies full of beautiful harmonies and rich textures – immaculately crafted light music.”

The American composer Frederick Shepherd Converse was a leading name in American music up to the Second World War. It was Converse who composed the first American opera, performed at the Met in New York. Yet despite being widely heard in his day, after his death in 1940 he was soon eclipsed by the new generation of Copland, Harris, Barber and their contemporaries. His revival is long overdue, vividly demonstrated by this programme of colourful orchestral tone poems – the four movements of American Sketches from the late 1920s, the early Festival of Pan (after a Keats poem) and the evocative Song of the Sea, a tone poem after Whitman. Whether you respond to the lyricism of the Festival of Pan and Song of the Sea or the varied scenes of American Sketches, this is enjoyable music to which you will return time and again.

Why has no one previously thought to release Arthur Benjamin’s three string concertos together on one CD? Maybe this has to do with the difficulty of the music. Now Dutton Epoch’s solo team of violinist Lorraine McAslan and violist Sarah-Jane Bradley, playing with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, have produced remarkably involving performances. Here we have the almost unknown Benjamin Violin Concerto and Viola Concerto, the soloists uniting for the more familiar Romantic Fantasy for violin, viola and orchestra. Dedicated to Walton, the Violin Concerto is notable for its wealth of invention, for the English feel of the opening movement (owing to its pentatonic colouration) and for the lilting siciliana charm of the middle movement. Listeners will particularly engage with the music’s energy, thrillingly articulated by soloist Lorraine McAslan’s flashing violin playing, especially in the driven Rondo finale. McAslan is joined by Sarah-Jane Bradley in the Romantic Fantasy for Violin, Viola and Orchestra. This is a delightful score of ever-shifting lyricism, of exchange and interplay between the soloist and with the orchestra. Sarah-Jane Bradley is soloist in the wartime Viola Concerto, sometimes known as ‘Elegy, Waltz and Toccata’, the composer’s own orchestration of his Viola Sonata. Reflecting the times, Benjamin essays a score of sombre tone but of no less eloquence, expressively performed by Sarah-Jane Bradley.

"The immense popularity of Arthur Benjamin's Jamaican Rumba has proved a bar to establishing its composer's credentials as a serious figure, though paradoxically the missing ingredient in his Walton inspired Violin Concerto of 1932 is a catchy melodic idea. An intense score of three linked movements, it here receives an extremely convincing performance by Lorraine McAslan, a muchadmired champion of British music who displays an easy technical command. making light of the music's many demands. The Romantic Fantasy for violin, viola and orchestra came four years later in 1936, and is a more readily engaging score. In the outer movements, McAslan's silvery tone contrasts with the fruity quality of Sarah-Jane Bradley's viola Gust as the work requires), yet the two neatly blend in the playful central scherzino. That viola weight is vital for the Elegy, Waltz and Toccata, a work with the alternative title of Viola Concerto, where the soloist has to find the strength to dominate a busy orchestra in the finale. With a charming central waltz, it is a readily attractive piece. with the viola often weaving its own independent line around the orchestra. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra. with John Gibbons conducting. offers assured support in music that must be new to the players. and the engineers keep the soloists well forward. "
David Denton, The Strad magazine, March 2012

Conductor-composer Ronald Corp couples two supremely engaging choral works of our time, pairing his own cantata And all the Trumpets Sounded (of 1989) with Michael Hurd’s appealing choral symphony The Shepherd’s Calendar (of 1975). The baritone soloist in And all the Trumpets Sounded is Mark Stone, in The Shepherd’s Calendar, Roderick Williams. And all the Trumpets Sounded was written as a companion piece to Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, setting Whitman and First World War poets interspersed with the words of the Requiem Mass and focusing on war, the dead and the trumpets of the last judgement framed by the Dies Irae. This is virile and intensely moving music. Hurd’s choral symphony The Shepherd’s Calendar sets words by John Clare for chorus with baritone solo. The movements follow the year from January to May (the scherzo), ending in the fourth movement with the time span from September, Hurd’s engaging choral writing and evocative orchestration perfectly attuned to a poetic vision of the circling year. Here the soloist is Roderick Williams, supremely eloquent in the third movement with a poignant soaring baritone solo ‘O Love is So Deceiving!’ – the unfamiliar but immediately attractive music causing a sensation in the control room during recording, so telling is Hurd’s setting.

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