New Classics
The long and vibrant tradition of art-song in England has seen many great composers from Finzi to Vaughan Williams, Gurney to Moeran and Warlock and countless more. The small Dunelm Records label released many albums of English song in limited circulation, several of which are now again available on Diversions. This recording was made in 2003 for the North West [England] Composers’ Association and includes songs by several of the UK’s song specialists, some of whom are far better known internationally than others. The program shows the great variety of styles produced in settings of poets from Thomas Hardy to Tennyson, Brontë and many others in these ‘Songs of Nature, Life and Love’. Baritone Mark Rowlinson has had an international singing career for over 50 years, most recently appearing as narrator in Rawsthorne’s ‘Practical Cats’ (Divine Art DDA 25169) as well as being a senior BBC producer. Pianist Peter Lawson is widely regarded as the best accompanist in the UK and a very worthy successor to the legendary Gerald Moore. There are three excellent songs by Thomas Pitfield and one of his handsome wood-cuts adorns the cover. His song, The Wagon of Life, which gives the album its title, is a translation by Alice and Thomas Pitfield of a poem by Pushkin. Other highlights include Geoffrey Kimpton’s setting of Thomas Hardy’s yearning Faintheart in a Railway Station (‘A radiant stranger, who saw not me’), John R Williamson’s settings of poetry by A E Housman, two solemn Psalm settings by Sasha Johnson Manning, David Golightly’s exhilarating Songs of the Clifftop (to poems by Steve Hobson), and David Forshaw’s The Owl, Whale Song and Horse, setting poems by Kathleen Collier. Subtitled ‘Songs Of Nature, Life and Love in Time and Place’, this is a delightful album for all lovers of English Song and poetry, performed with warmth, dexterity and tenderness.
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