BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, Pumeza Matshikiza, Sarah Connolly, Joshua Stewart, Ashley Riches – Tippett: A Child of our Time (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:46 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Tippett’s A Child of Our Time begins in sorrow: ‘The world turns on its dark side. It is winter.’ Composed at the start of the Second World War but provoked by decades of intolerance, Tippett’s ‘modern oratorio’ is built around the soul-shaking melodies of African-American spirituals. But the human spirit is unbreakable, and this great British choral masterpiece is anything but a counsel of despair.
Sir Andrew Davis understands that; and after a lifetime championing British music, there are few artists better equipped than our Conductor Laureate to bring out Tippett’s boundless optimism as well as his burning sorrow. The BBC Symphony Chorus is joined by a truly exceptional team of soloists, and it all begins with a great leap of hope and joy: the ever-fresh Concerto for Double String Orchestra.
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Ashley Riches – The Harmonious Echo: Songs by Sir Arthur Sullivan (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:33 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Although most widely remembered for his operettas in partnership with W.S. Gilbert, Sir Arthur Sullivan was the most famous of all British composers of the nineteenth century. He was revered as a composer of oratorios, and was urged by Queen Victoria to compose a grand opera. The result, Ivanhoe, achieved 155 consecutive performances (in an opera house especially built for it). Achieving equal success in his lifetime, his substantial legacy of songs fell into neglect in the twentieth century, but as this album demonstrates Sullivans endlessly fertile melodic gifts withstand comparison with those of any other song composer. David Owen Norris and his quartet of outstanding young British singers deliver this fascinating programme with terrific style and panache.
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Ashley Riches – A Musical Zoo (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:13 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
“A Musical Zoo” with Ashley Riches and Joseph Middleton is a veritable tour de force, featuring compositions spanning nearly 160 years, from Schubert’s The Trout to Shostakovich’s Once there lived a cockroach, and four languages (German, French, Russian, and English).
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