LA BELLE DAME (EMR CD085)
World Première recordings of turn-of-the-century English Romanticism

BBC Concert Orchestra
John Andrews, conductor
Roderick Williams, baritone
Rupert Marshall-Luck, violin
EAN 5 060263 500797

https://www.em-records.com/purchase/selection.php

Roger Quilter
The Faithless Shepherdess

Frederick Delius
Petite Suite d’Orchestre:
Marche / Berceuse / Scherzo / Duo / Tema con Variazioni

Gustav Holst
Ornulf’s Drapa

Norman O’Neill
La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Cyril Scott
The Ballad of Fair Helen of Kirkconnel

Havergal Brian, orch. Rupert Marshall-Luck
Legend

Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie
Colomba

In the decades either side of the death of Queen Victoria, British composers were delighting their audiences whilst also searching for their voices in a world where Romanticism was opening out into the ever-greater harmonic and dramatic possibilities that the twentieth century would bring. This disc brings together some of the most vibrant works of those decades, incredibly all in World Première recordings, with Roderick Williams giving voice to a tradition of large-scale vocal scenes with orchestra that has, sadly, all but disappeared. Passionate and radiant and haunting works by Gustav Holst, Frederick Delius, and Cyril Scott are complemented by the urbane wit of Roger Quilter’s setting of “The Faithless Shepherdess” and the stormy turbluence of Havergal Brian’s “Legend”, performed in a new orchestration by Rupert Marshall-Luck.