John Finucane / Elisaveta Blumina IRISH HOLIDAYS

Ireland is not only the green island, but also the land of legends and singers. All this is reflected on the second Genuin Classics CD by the Irish clarinetist John Finucane. The exceptional wind player brings together music from his homeland from 1911 to the present day. Without exception, these are genuine discoveries, and not only because of the world premiere recordings and works written for John Finucane. Even in the most modern of times, the magic of the past is still alive, and contemporary musical language is inspired by the spirit of the Irish harpists: from Stanford to Bax, from Ferguson to Trimble. An Irish blessing!

Dame Sarah Connolly / Joseph Middleton COME TO ME IN MY DREAMS

I had a pretty good time at the Royal College of Music in the mid-1980s. As a joint first study student, while I loved singing in Sir David Willcocks’s chamber choir, I probably saw myself principally as a pianist, hooked on song repertoire. 

The cocoon-like basement library (where I spent at least half of each week sprawled on the cerise carpet among sheaves of music) houses an astonishing collection of British songs. It also keeps a wonderful discography from which I learned what makes a song come alive, particularly from Ben Luxon, Peter Pears and Britten, Janet Baker, and Kathleen Ferrier. For this disc I have attempted to create a snapshot of over 120 years of song, tracing the lineage from Stanford to Turnage. I tried to find suitable songs by Coleridge-Taylor and Elizabeth Maconchy but no luck this time. However, two beautiful early compositions by Muriel Herbert and Rebecca Clarke stand proudly alongside songs by Frank Bridge, Thomas Dunhill, and Gustav Holst. 

I am thrilled that Colin Matthews and the Britten Estate gave permission to Joseph 20 Middleton and me to record the world premiere of two unknown songs that Benjamin Britten had composed for but in the event excluded from A Charm of Lullabies. 

Mark Turnage very kindly wrote me a song to bring the programme right up to the present day. 

As he knew that Michael Tippett’s ‘Full fathom five’ would be on the disc, I sense that Mark was inspired by similar ghostly chimes: 

Hark! now I hear them, – 

Ding-dong, bell. (Dame Sarah Connolly)

Choir of the Queen’s College Oxford / Owen Rees THE HOUSE OF THE MIND

This Friday, 8 June, sees the release of House of the Mind, the Choir’s new CD. The Choir celebrates the works of choral music icon Herbert Howells in a disc that sets his works alongside pieces that they inspired and influenced – such as Nico Muhly’s Like as the Hart for choir, solo violin and percussion – as well as works that, in turn, influenced him. The disc features two world premiere recordings by David Bednall: settings of two Marian Antiphons Alma redemptoris mater and Ave regina caelorum that ‘complete’ the partly-lost set of works that Howells wrote for Westminster Cathedral.

Sam Haywood STANDFORD Preludes

Stanford retained an enthusiasm for the music of Bach throughout his life, and the two sets of ‘Twenty-four Preludes in all the keys for pianoforte’ are a clear homage to JSB’s own ‘48’. Sam Haywood, making his second recording for Hyperion, performs his own selection.

Towards the end of his life Stanford wrote two sets of 24 Preludes for piano boasting impeccable craft and characteristic resourcefulness as well as a most satisfying diversity of mood and genre. The key-scheme matches that of Bach’s ‘48’, and the present Hyperion survey contains all but 10 pieces from both books. From the First Set of 1918 I’d single out the charmingly capricious Humoresque (No 9), powerfully elegiac No 16, marked Adagio (con Fantasia) and an Irish lament or ‘Caoine’ in all but name, and deeply felt March (No 22) which—like the composer’s enviably taut Third Piano Trio from the same year—bears a dedication to the memory of Maurice Gray (son of Alan Gray, Stanford’s organist colleague at Trinity College, Cambridge). Finished some time around 1921, the Second Set likewise contains its fair share of treasures, not least the sanguine swagger of the E major Alla marcia (No 33), moody, barcarolle-like No 36 in F minor (echoes here of both Chopin and Fauré), noble Chaconne in F sharp minor (No 38), winsome Musette (No 42) and lofty A major Alla sarabanda (No 43). The valedictory final piece (appropriately entitled ‘Addio’) proves enormously touching.

Sam Haywood (a pupil of Paul Badura-Skoda and Maria Curcio, and regular chamber partner to—among others—Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis) does this repertoire absolutely proud; possessing a pleasingly rounded tone, sensitivity to dynamic nuance and flawless technical address, his is a decidedly superior brand of pianism. Exemplary sound (Ben Connellan) and scholarly annotation (Jeremy Dibble) offer additional incentive to check out this most rewarding issue. (Gramophone)