Various Composers - English Orchestral Works [Tate-English Chamber Orchestra]
This is a fun disc, filled with things off the beaten track, and English Composers without an Elgar or Vaughan Williams in sight, 67 minutes of music, with 9 tracks [nearly 8 minutes per piece], it's not only a lovely compilation disc in its own right, but can also be used as a lead in to discover more in certain avenues, if you like a certain work / Composer, it's easy to follow it up with searching some more down that path, but for me this disc fills a gap that most other discs don't, a great chance to just forget about other things and to get away to an imaginary place on the front cover, played this a few years ago [15th November 2012].
Jeffrey Tate is English, he's now 72, he recoded this back in 1985, the front cover is gorgeous, goes along with the music very much, a hazy less focused shot of a river scene with trees, the use of a green and blue filter very prominent, the lettering is nice too, plus the EMI logo brings a dash of a different colour.
On this listen i liked tracks 1, 3-5 & 7-9, with track 1 'The Banks Of Green Willow' by Butterworth the outstanding piece of music, it's a short orchestral 'Idyll', but it's truly lovely, it starts off with a solo clarinet introduction [0:00-0:15], announcing the folk tune, before the sweet strings come in, the whole thing is just awash with the English countryside, and the oboe plays a significant part of the nostalgia of the piece [1:04-1:13], in the middle section it can get quite fast and robust [2:34+], but it settles back down into the reflective pastoral music as before, with the oboe presenting a gorgeous endearing solo [3:50-4:22], and the flute following suite also [4:24-5:04], backed by some tender string writing towards the end, a solo violin takes over for a slightly darker sound [5:13+], and within here there's some of the most affecting string playing of the piece [5:43-6:00], it's breathtaking really, it's a shame that Butterworth died in the Somme at 31, he would have been the next Delius.
Here's the Butterworth piece being performed on YouTube.
Jeffrey Tate is English, he's now 72, he recoded this back in 1985, the front cover is gorgeous, goes along with the music very much, a hazy less focused shot of a river scene with trees, the use of a green and blue filter very prominent, the lettering is nice too, plus the EMI logo brings a dash of a different colour.
On this listen i liked tracks 1, 3-5 & 7-9, with track 1 'The Banks Of Green Willow' by Butterworth the outstanding piece of music, it's a short orchestral 'Idyll', but it's truly lovely, it starts off with a solo clarinet introduction [0:00-0:15], announcing the folk tune, before the sweet strings come in, the whole thing is just awash with the English countryside, and the oboe plays a significant part of the nostalgia of the piece [1:04-1:13], in the middle section it can get quite fast and robust [2:34+], but it settles back down into the reflective pastoral music as before, with the oboe presenting a gorgeous endearing solo [3:50-4:22], and the flute following suite also [4:24-5:04], backed by some tender string writing towards the end, a solo violin takes over for a slightly darker sound [5:13+], and within here there's some of the most affecting string playing of the piece [5:43-6:00], it's breathtaking really, it's a shame that Butterworth died in the Somme at 31, he would have been the next Delius.
Here's the Butterworth piece being performed on YouTube.
