NEW HORIZONS: Contemporary British and American Music.
The Wordsworth
Singers
conducted by Michael Hancock Charles Harrison.
WS 001
£10 plus p&p from Frances Faux, Gate Farm, Mungrisdale, Penrith
CA11 0XR.
This review will also appear in the British
Music Society News
Most of this enterprising disc comprises British music, the exception being
Samuel Barber's three piece Reincarnations, in Barber's characteristic
late Romantic idiom. The best known item is the Five Spirituals from
Tippett's A Child of Our Time (am I alone in preferring some of these
in settings by others?) and they feature some very attractive solo work from
eight of the 27 strong Wordsworth Singers. Established in 1997, the Singers
sound impressive, accomplished, musicianly and nicely balanced with commendably
clear diction. Mr. Hancock conducts Barber and Tippett, leaving almost all
the rest to Mr. Harrison. Outstanding among this latter repertoire and perhaps
of greatest interest to BMS members are the three songs by Edgar Bainton,
Open Thy Gates, In The Wilderness and , perhaps best known, The
Ballad of Semerwater: sensitive responses to the words, marvellously
singable and excellently performed here. The disc is worth investigating
for these alone, but we also have a chance to get to know the music of Harold
East (1947- ), Canadian-born but long domiciled in London: a short, rousingly
extrovert, organ-accompanied Celebratory Anthem, to words by Spenser,
a fine partsong Summer and four short organ solos, one written especially
for Mr. Harrison, who plays them brilliantly here. Mr. East's music, the
most astringent on the disc is well made and has a direct appeal. The other
organ solo, the CD's longest track, is Bainton's well worked Fantasia
on the plainsong hymn Vexilla Regis. Altogether this is a thoroughly
recommendable release, well recorded (in Carlisle Cathedral), if a trifle
closely with some slightly prominent sibilants. The booklet prints all the
words; a few notes on the music itself would have been helpful.
Philip Scowcroft
