ENGLISH STRING MINIATURES volume
2
Frank BRIDGE Sally in our Alley and Cherry Ripe;
Edward ELGAR Sospiri;
Haydn WOOD Fantasy-Concerto;
John IRELAND The Holy Boy;
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Charterhouse
Suite;
Frederick DELIUS Air & Dance;
Peter WARLOCK Serenade for the 60th Birthday
of Frederick Delius;
Geoffrey BUSH Consort Music;
Frank BRIDGE Sir Roger de
Coverley
English Northern
Philharmonia
David Lloyd-Jones
Recorded in the Great Hall, Leeds University, March 2000
NAXOS 8.555068
[69:21]
Crotchet AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Brief though each of the pieces on this disc may be, most have real substance
and offer a wide range of expertly-crafted writing for strings. Pride of
place must go to the three Frank Bridge pieces. These are no mere folk-song
arrangements - they are more in the nature of rhapsodies, using the original
tunes as starting-points. All three are wonderfully inventive and technically
demanding.
Of the rest, I particularly enjoyed Bush's Consort Music - its six
very short movements include a delicious waltz and many unexpected twists
and turns. It is good to be reminded that there was more to Haydn Wood than
Roses of Picardy: his three-movement Fantasy-Concerto is a
reworking of a prize-winning string quartet which first appeared in 1905
and shows an assured grasp of form. The Warlock Serenade happily
complements the two Delius pieces. Elgar's Sospiri is imbued with
the requisite degree of painful yearning.
David Lloyd-Jones secures from his players performances of evident affection
and enjoyment. The sound is full and mainly rich - especially from the lower
strings - but the upper strings' tone is sometimes 'wiry' in high-lying passages.
This leads me to wonder how large were the forces used. In my local concert
hall we never get a full complement of strings these days; and I suspect
that in the recording-studio the same happened, with engineering wizardry
to compensate.
For all that, this is a typical Naxos bargain, and strongly recommended.
Adrian Smith
