Ailish Tynan, Roderick Williams, Kathryn Rudge & Christopher Glynn – Schumann in English, Vol. 1 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:18:26 minutes | 2,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Christopher Glynn continues his Lieder in English series by joining three of today’s foremost singers to perform Robert Schumann’s best-loved song cycles in new English versions by Jeremy Sams – a new way to encounter and enjoy some of the most romantic and atmospheric songs ever composed.
‘Schumann is one of music’s great storytellers – and never more so than in the song cycles of 1840. These vivid new translations by Jeremy Sams recreate the immediacy and intimacy of his storytelling for modern English-speaking listeners, offering a new perspective on these famous songs of loneliness and love, joy and sorrow, marriage, and separation.’ – Christopher Glynn
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Kathryn Rudge & Christopher Glynn – Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:11:25 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings
SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce 17 world premiere recordings of Songs by Hamilton Harty in a ravishing recital by one of todays most exciting young partnerships mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and pianist Christopher Glynn. Although best known today as a composer of orchestral music, Hamilton Harty was also one of the most accomplished accompanists of his generation, forming especially notable partnerships with the sopranos Agnes Nicholls and Elsie Swinton. It prompted, in turn, his increasing activity as an accomplished song writer. The 23 featured songs include settings that speak eloquently of Hartys abiding engagement with his Irish heritage and point, in the technical demands made of vocalist and pianist alike, to his innate understanding of the song form in all its concentrated, emotional power. Favourite Harty songs such as Sea Wrack, The Blue Hills of Antrim and My Lagan Love are heard alongside settings of Walt Whitman (By the Bivouacs Fitful Flame), Thomas Campion (Come, O Come, My Hearts Delight) and two texts by the composer himself (My Thoughts of You and Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis). Also included are two early, unpublished works for solo piano Idyll and Arlequin and Columbine. Five songs are heard in new editions created from original manuscripts by British music authority Jeremy Dibble who also provides informative booklet notes.
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Kathryn Rudge, Royal Liverpool Orchestra & Choir and Vassily Petrenko – Edward Elgar: Sea Pictures & The Music Makers (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:05 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PM Classics Ltd.
Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO continue their critically acclaimed Elgar project with Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, with Kathryn Rudge as soloist. Sea Pictures is one of the composer’s most popular works and as an orchestral song cycle stands alongside those by Mahler and Strauss. The Music Makers however has had a more troubled history. Elgar had worked on it on and off from 1903 and it was premiered in 1912. Both words and music came in for criticism. Elgar quotes from his symphonies, and ‘Nimrod’ as well as other sources. It can be viewed in the same way as ‘Ein Heldenleben’’ though here the composer is not a hero, but a bard.
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Sarah Fox, Kathryn Rudge, Toby Spence, Henry Waddington, London Mozart Players & William Vann – Parry: Judith (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:11:12 minutes | 2,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Recorded after the first London performance for over 130 years, Parry’s neglected oratorio here appears for the very first time. Having been commissioned by the Birmingham Festival, Parry decided to combine the Old Testament stories of Manasseh and Judith. A good deal of the libretto was provided by Parry himself, who took other texts from the biblical books of Isaiah, Psalms, and Judith. Having originally conceived the work in four acts, Parry condensed it into two. Judith was premiered by Richter in Birmingham in August 1888, and it consolidated Parry’s reputation as a choral composer, numerous performances following in Edinburgh and in London. Although popular in his lifetime, Judith fell into obscurity after Parry’s death.
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