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ON WENLOCK EDGE ON WENLOCK EDGE SONGS BY RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, IVOR GURNEY & IAN VENABLES It is a remarkable sign of insecurity that a the older composer. On his return to England composer with so many social advantages, a Vaughan Williams recalled, ‘I came back with a On Wenlock Edge Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) thorough musical training (under Parry, Stanford bad attack of French fever and wrote a string 1. On Wenlock Edge [3.40] and Wood in England and Bruch in Germany), and quartet which caused a friend to say that I must 2. From far, from eve and morning [2.11] with a growing reputation should, at the age of have been having tea with Debussy’. That this was 3. Is my team ploughing [3.39] thirty-five, seek yet further study abroad with a an important step for Vaughan Williams is shown 4. Oh, when I was in love with you [0.44] composerthe Unknown three Region years younger than himself. by his restored confidence and the release of a 5. Bredon Hill [7.19] Despite the successful première of his setting for creative energy that was to produce a number of 6. Clun [3.28] chorus and orchestra of Walt Whitman’s Toward significanttheme by Thomas works in Tallis. the next few years including Ludlow and Teme Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) at the Leeds Festival in his first major achievement: the Fantasia on a 7. When smoke stood up from Ludlow [3.27] October 1907 Vaughan Williams came to the 8. Fair in a western brookland [5.08] conclusion that his work needed more refinement 9. ‘Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town [1.20] because it ‘had come to a dead end and that a This new sense of confidence is immediately 10. Ludlow Fair [2.14] little French polish would be of use’. After apparent in two works that received their first 11. On the idle hill of summer [3.05] consulting Delius and a number of friends on performance at London’s Aeolian Hall on 15th 12. When I was one and twenty [1.21] which French composer to choose (Vincent D’Indy November 1909 in a programme jointly promoted 13. The Lent Lily [3.30] had been suggested) it was eventually Ravel to by Vaughan Williams and the celebrated tenor Songs of Eternity and Sorrow Op.36 Ian Venables (b.1955) whom Vaughan Williams turned for help. In Gervais Elwes. These were the G minor String 14. Easter Hymn [6.38] January the following year he arrived in Paris, Quartet and the song-cycle On Wenlock Edge. In 15. When green buds hang in the elm like dust [3.00] staying in an uncomfortable hotel without a piano, setting six poems from A Shropshire Lad, first 16. Oh who is that young sinner? [2.33] and went to see Ravel four or five times a week for published in 1896 at his own expense, by the late 17. Because I liked you better [4.25] the next three months. Victorian poet A. E. Housman, Vaughan Williams was to move in a strikingly new direction, not least Total Timings [57.49] Although it was mainly the orchestration of piano in the innovative scoring for tenor, piano and ANDREW KENNEDY TENOR, SIMON CRAWFORD-PHILlIPS PIANO scores that Vaughan Williams practised during his string quartet. This chamber combination had not DANTE QUARTET studies with Ravel, it was the exposure to French been previously explored by English composers, www.signumrecords.com (and Russian) music that clearly left its mark on and while Vaughan Williams may possibly have

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Wenlock Edge known Chausson’s song Chanson Perpétuelle (also assume a more chilling aspect as summer turns following Arthur Somervell’s first Shropshire lad reveal an astonishing confidence and maturity, with piano quintet) via his lessons with Ravel, On to winter and the presence of death haunts the cycle for baritone and piano that appeared in something that the slow-developing Vaughan is an expansive work that, in its remainder of this extended dramatic setting. 1904. Housman famously disliked composers Williams simply could not have matched when he emotional breadth has an organic, almost Equally dramatic is the dialogue between the setting his poems (although he never refused was in his twenties. symphonic quality. ghostploughing? of a dead soldier and the young man who themploughing? permission) and complained that Vaughan has appropriated his sweetheart in Is my team Williams had removed two verses from Is my team Before music college, and not long after What is also apparent and highly significant (just The contrast between the sepulchral The lines, ‘The goal stands up, the completing his years as a chorister at Gloucester as in the String Quartet) is the guiding hand of questions and the vibrant answers from the living keeper/ Stands up to keep the goal’ does Housman Cathedral, Gurney discovered A.E. Housman and Ravel. His influence seems to have removed the world is brilliantly effective. So too is the rapt little favour and their deletion by Vaughan in 1908 set his On your midnight pallet; the same ‘lumpy and stodgy’ textures that Vaughan atmosphere created by the harp-like piano chords Williams is surely an act of kindness. year attempting Is my team ploughing?, a song he Williams had criticised in his own earlier works and a recitative-like melodic line that frame the later revised. (with its echoes of Brahms and Parry) and is, in gentlewas inFrom love far,with from you eve and morning. Light, Ludlow and Teme On Wenlock Edge, now replaced by a more transparent textures are a feature of Oh, when I As someone who possessed the exceptional gift of transparent, lighter touch with the addition of where a dancing piano A year after Ivor Gurney arrived at the Royal being equally talented as both composer and poet, ‘several atmospheric effects’. The first of these accompaniment underpins playful pizzicato string College of Music on a scholarship in 1911 to study Gurney was naturally drawn to the poetry of others ‘effects’ is heard in the nervous rhythms (with the chords. In the final song, Clun, (written as early as composition under Stanford, his near contemporary but rarely set his own poems, unlike his fellow composer’s characteristic triplet figuration and 1906) Housman’s calm acceptance of death is Herbert Howells recalled that he had a ‘wallet Englishman Thomas Campion (1567-1620) - also parallel fourths) of the opening storm scene of the matched by music that forms a delicate epilogue bulging with works of many kinds. There were doubly gifted as poet/composer - whose lute song title song. Fiery piano and string gestures vividly to the cycle. piano preludes thick with untamed chords; violin texts were always taken from his own words. evoke Housman’s ‘gale of life’ that has always sonatas strewn with ecstatic crises; organ During the war years when life in the trenches troubled men’s lives. Particularly atmospheric and The rhythms and melodic contours inherent in works which he tried out amidst Gloucester’s made writing music almost impossible it was harmonically arresting is the accompaniment to Housman’s poems, idealised in a kind of half- imperturbable pillars’. Songs are also likely to poetry that pre-occupied Gurney and in 1917 his Bredon Hill (actually in the poet’s native imagined Shropshire landscape, and his recurring haveElizabethan been there, Songs considering his poetic leanings first collection of poems, Severn and Somme, was Worcestershire, not Shropshire) where rich string themes of loss, death and a rural nostalgia made and early vocal settings. By 1914 Gurney had published (the second being War’s Embers that sonorities of piled up chords beautifully capture his work a natural gift for composers wishing to completed his first important collection; Five followed two years later). However, a handful of both the tolling bells and the summer languor of ‘shake hands across the arts’. His poetry (originally for the intriguing songs were written during this period and include Housman’s poem. After the cheerful pealing of the eventually enjoyed a widespread circulation combination of mezzo-soprano, pairs of flutes, In Flanders and Dinny Hill, (with verses written by bells (themselves an image for birth, marriage (particularly during the Great War) and became clarinets and bassoons and harp), setting texts by his school friend Will Harvey) which express a and death) for piano alone in the third verse, they increasingly popular with British composers Shakespeare, Nashe and Fletcher. These songs longing for his Gloucestershire. In addition to

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these songs Gurney set further Housman verses: seven verses for an identical ensemble, completing Housman’s lines in the right order. Tensions are Ludlow and Teme is performed here in the new On Wenlock Edge. This seems to have been Ludlow and Temein just a few weeks. The following released in the quicksilver ‘Tis time, I think where edition by Philip Lancaster, published by Stainer & conceived in June 1917; a sturdy and so far March the cycle received its first performance at the poet wishes to see the spring in Wenlock. The Ludlow, and incorporates a number of revisions unpublished setting which is markedly different the home of Gurney’s college friend Marion Scott melodic charm of On the idle hill of summer surely made by Ivor Gurney in 1925. from Vaughan Williams own arrangement and who recalled that after the performance ‘No refutes Trevor Hold’s assertion that Gurney’s music which was then unknown to Gurney. It is composer being forthcoming in spite of repeated ‘rambles like an unkempt English hedgerow’. © David Truslove 2007 astonishing that since joining the 2nd/5th calls for him, Gurney was sought, and at length Whileone and the twenty accompaniment is a little inelegant the Gloucester’s with whom he served as a private found, bashfully hiding behind the big bookcase melodic inspiration is as effortless as When I was Songs of Eternity and Sorrow Op. 36 from February 1915 and his arrival in France in at the far end of the back drawing-room.’ or The Lent lily - a superb marriage May 1916 Gurney’s creative stimulus was of words and music that is amongst Gurney’s In Songs of Eternity and Sorrow, commissioned by undimmed, and had even ‘sharpened his pen’. Just as the On Wenlock Edge cycle follows no finest. According to Vaughan Williams, the Finzi Friends, Ian Venables continues a tradition of Despite having suffered a minor bullet wound on continuous narrative thread or incorporates any Georgian poets ‘had just rediscovered England setting the English poet Alfred Edward Housman Good Friday in April 1917 (the poet Edward musicalTeme connections between the songs, neither and the language that fitted the shy beauty of (1859-1936) for tenor, string quartet and piano. Thomas was killed on Easter Monday) and a gas does Gurney make any attempt in Ludlow and their own country’. He then added, ‘Gurney has However, whereas Vaughan Williams and Ivor attack during the Ypres offensive in September, to create a real sense of unity. The songs are, found the exact musical equivalent both in Gurney set poems from A Shropshire Lad, Venables his letters home reveal a cheerful stoicism. however, linked by their affection for the English sentiment and in cadence to this poetry’. has chosen lesser-known poems from More Poems countryside and a love of the rural way of life. So and Additional Poems. Following his recovery at Bangour hospital in strong in character are they with their own Gurney composed a little over 300 songs (of which Edinburgh and his discharge from the army, individual mood (as well as their considerable about one hundred have been published) and In his preface to the published score, Venables Gurney returned to the Royal College of Music in vocalstood demands)up from Ludlowthat separate performance of include a second song cycle to Housman’s verse: states “… my attention was drawn to those March 1919 where he now began studying with these songs can still be effective. When smoke The Western Playland, scored for baritone soloist, poems that were either infrequently set, or had not Vaughan Williams. It is from this period that his makes an arresting and string quartet and piano. Sadly, his increasingly been set at all. Why, I asked myself, had composers avoided these poems? Trying to answer this creative outpouring was at its most intense, dramatica western beginning; brookland its opening triplet figure erratic behaviour and mental instability noted setting over forty songs alone during the second perhaps a passing tribute to Vaughan Williams. In before the war when a friend declared … ‘he did not question was really the starting point of my work half of 1919. It was at a concert in November 1919 the long-limbed lines and quiet intensity of Far in seem to belong to us’, led to his eventual and the beginning of the compositional process. that Gurney discovered his new teacher’s song Gurney creates an almost incarceration in the City of London Mental Hospital, Reading through these ‘discarded’ poems it cycle On Wenlock Edge. So excited was Gurney by unbearable longing for home; its nostalgia, so Dartford in December 1922 where he remained became clear to me why composers had passed this experience that he immediately began work on typical of Housman, raised to an ecstatic level, there until his death on December 26th 1937. over them. A few were not really “vintage” his own cycle of Shropshire lad poems, and set despite Gurney’s failure to reproduce faithfully Housman, whilst others seemed to lack musicality,

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or touched upon poetic themes that were not eternal ‘scholar gypsy’. This theme, combined with frenzied climax on the words ‘for the colour of his TEXTS suitable for setting. Moreover, amongst them were the poem’s pastoral imagery inspired Venables hair’. Stricken, the music collapses in on itself. a number of poems that may have been ignored to express some of life’s more affirmative 1 - 6 On Wenlock Edge for the simple reason that their subject matter sentiments. Its feel of the Dorian mode sets in Because I liked you better is a sad, yet hauntingly Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was probably too controversial. This is consistent motion a gentle, oscillating triadic figure for beautiful poem that tells of an unrequited love with the fact that many of them were not strings that underpins the majority of this short which at that time was forbidden. The strong, On Wenlock Edge published until after Housman’s death in 1936.” but evocative setting. Two climaxes of breathtaking yearning syncopation, peppered throughout the sensuality lead to a gentle coda. Ending on a low movement, allied to a harmonic language that can On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; The first, Easter Hymn is a powerful evocation of G natural from the piano, its mood is neither only be described as desolate, creates a His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; Housman’s religious anxiety and one that questioned desolate nor affirmatory. landscape of unbearable poignancy. This is broken The gale, it plies the saplings double, the most fundamental tenet of Christianity, only by a short climax on the words ‘“Goodbye” And thick on Severn snow the leaves. namely the Resurrection. The two-stanza poem is The symphonic nature of Ian Venables’s Song said you “forget me”’ again suggesting mock ideal for setting because of its bold and striking Cycles - from a Mahlerian rather than Brahmsian majesty but in which irony rather than sincerity is T’would blow like this through holt and hanger visual imagery. Venables achieves a myriad of standpoint - firmly places the emotional heart of the overriding musical sentiment. The coda to this When Uricon the city stood; changing moods with the introductory material for eachwho iswork that in young its finalsinner?, movement, leaving the movement contains some of the most beautiful ‘Tis the old wind in the old anger, piano and string quartet belying later moments of penultimate song to act as a kind of scherzo. This music in the whole work ending a 21st century But then it threshed another wood. tortured anguish. The dichotomous nature of the is nowhere more apparent than in Housman’s Oh, view of Housman which, in many ways, reveals a poem is further highlighted by a passage of a clever and sardonic less familiar side of his creative life - an aspect Then, ‘twas before my time, the Roman sepulchral calm and mock majesty, simply to be commentary on the trials that befell Oscar Wilde. that has, until recently, remained in the shadows, At yonder heaving hill would stare; shattered by a return to the movement’s opening In altering the ‘crime’ to ‘the colour of his hair’ and as such has been unexplored by composers. It The blood that warms an English yeoman, idea, only this time uncompromising and Housman was able to suggest the absurdity of is nevertheless part of Housman’s creativity that The thoughts that hurt him, they were there. challenging, as the poem’s final line demands prejudice. Venables’s setting takes two important demands a musical response in equal measure to that the God that is, “… come hither out of musical ideas, both of which - a strong rhythmic the more ‘acceptable’ face of this ‘scholar poet’. There, like the wind through woods in riot, heaven and see and save”. ostinato and the extensive use of the tritone - Through him the gale of life blew high; green buds hang gives the movement an almost unbearable, © Graham J. Lloyd 2007 The tree of man was never quiet; If Easter Hymn shows Housman’s more strident claustrophobic sound-world. Each verse builds in Then ‘twas the Roman, now ‘tis I. poetic style, then the short pastoral poem When tension as these two musical features vie for redresses the balance. In this prominence. False hope is presented as the final The gale, it plies the saplings double, beautifully crafted lyric, Housman evoked the verse, ratcheted up a semitone, builds into a It blows so hard, ‘twill soon be gone:

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Today the Roman and his trouble No change though you lie under Oh, when I was in love with you Good people come and pray.” Are ashes under Uricon. The land you used to plough. But here my love would stay. Oh, when I was in love with you, From far, from eve and morning “Is my girl happy, Then I was clean and brave, And I would turn and answer That I thought hard to leave, And miles around the wonder grew Among the springing thyme, From far, from eve and morning And has she tired of weeping How well did I behave. “Oh, peal upon our wedding, And yon twelve-winded sky, As she lies down at eve?” And we will hear the chime, The stuff of life to knit me And now the fancy passes by, And come to church in time.” Blew hither: here am I. Ay, she lies down lightly, And nothing will remain, She lies not down to weep: And miles around they’ll say that I But when the snows at Christmas Now for a breath I tarry Your girl is well contented. Am quite myself again. On Bredon top were strown, Nor yet disperse apart. Be still, my lad, and sleep. My love rose up so early Take my hand quick and tell me, Bredon Hill And stole out unbeknown What have you in your heart. “Is my friend hearty, And went to church alone. Now I am thin and pine, In summertime on Bredon Speak now, and I will answer; And has he found to sleep in The bells they sound so clear; They tolled the one bell only, How shall I help you, say; A better bed than mine?” Round both the shires they ring them Groom there was none to see, Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters In steeples far and near, The mourners followed after, I take my endless way. Yes, lad, I lie easy, A happy noise to hear. And so to church went she, I lie as lads would choose; And would not wait for me. Is my team ploughing I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart, Here of a Sunday morning Never ask me whose. My love and I would lie, The bells they sound on Bredon, “Is my team ploughing, And see the coloured counties, And still the steeples hum, That I was used to drive (Housman’s original poem includes two more verses which were not And hear the larks so high “Come all to church, good people.” - And hear the harness jingle set by Vaughan Williams) About us in the sky. O noisy bells, be dumb; When I was man alive?” I hear you, I will come. The bells would ring to call her Ay, the horses trample, In valleys miles away; The harness jingles now; “Come all to church, good people;

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Clun Not Thames, not Teme is the river, I heard the tune he sang me, He hears: no more remembered Nor London nor Knighton the town: And spied his yellow bill; In fields where I was known, Clunton and Clunbury, I picked a stone and aimed it Here I lie down in London Clungunford and Clun, ‘Tis a long way further than Knighton, And threw it with a will: And turn to rest alone. Are the quietest places A quieter place than Clun, Then the bird was still. Under the sun. Where doomsday may thunder and lighten There, by the starlit fences, And little ‘twill matter to one. Then my soul within me The wanderer halts and hears In valleys of springs of rivers, Took up the blackbird’s strain, My soul that lingers sighing By Ony and Teme and Clun, 7 - e Ludlow and Teme And still beside the horses About the glimmering weirs. The country for easy livers, Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) Along the dewy lane The quietest under the sun, It sang the song again: ‘Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town When smoke stood up from Ludlow We still had sorrows to lighten, “Lie down, lie down, young yeoman; ‘Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town One could not be always glad, When smoke stood up from Ludlow, The sun moves always west; The golden broom should blow; And lads knew trouble at Knighton, And mist blew off from Teme, The road one treads to labour The hawthorn sprinkled up and down When I was a Knighton lad. And blithe afield to ploughing Will lead one home to rest, Should charge the land with snow. Against the morning beam And that will be the best. By bridges that Thames runs under, I strode beside my team, Spring will not wait the loiterer’s time In London, the town built ill, Far in a western brookland Who keeps so long away; ‘Tis sure small matter for wonder The blackbird in the coppice So others wear the broom and climb If sorrow is with one still. Looked out to see me stride, Far in a western brookland The hedgerows heaped with may. And hearkened as I whistled That bred me long ago And if as a lad grows older The trampling team beside, The poplars stand and tremble Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, The troubles he bears are more, And fluted and replied: By pools I used to know. Gold that I never see; He carries his griefs on a shoulder Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That handselled them long before. “Lie down, lie down, young yeoman; There, in the windless night-time, That will not shower on me. What use to rise and rise? The wanderer, marvelling why, Where shall one halt to deliver Rise man a thousand mornings Halts on the bridge to hearken This luggage I’d lief set down? Yet down at last he lies, How soft the poplars sigh. And then the man is wise.” - 12 - - 13 - 112booklet 13/11/07 11:07 Page 15

Ludlow Fair But now you may stare as you like and there’s When I was one-and-twenty And there’s the windflower chilly nothing to scan; With all the winds at play, The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to When I was one-and-twenty And there’s the Lenten lily the fair, be told I heard a wise man say, That has not long to stay There’s men from the barn and the forge and the They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage “Give crowns and pounds and guineas And dies on Easter Day. mill and the fold, of man, But not your heart away; The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor The lads that will die in their glory and never be old. Give pearls away and rubies And since till girls go maying are there, But keep your fancy free.” You find the primrose still, And there with the rest are the lads that will never On the idle hill of summer But I was one-and-twenty, And find the windflower playing be old. No use to talk to me. With every wind at will, On the idle hill of summer, But not the daffodil. There’s chaps from the town and the field and the Sleepy with the flow of streams, When I was one-and-twenty till and the cart, Far I hear the steady drummer I heard him say again, Bring baskets now, and sally And many to count are the stalwart, and many Drumming like a noise in dreams. “The heart out of the bosom Upon the spring’s array, the brave, Far and near and low and louder, Was never given in vain; And bear from hill and valley And many the handsome of face and the handsome On the roads of earth go by, ‘Tis paid with sighs a plenty The daffodil away of heart, Dear to friends and food for powder, And sold for endless rue.” That dies on Easter Day. And few that will carry their looks or their truth to Soldiers marching, all to die. And I am two-and-twenty, the grave. And oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true. r - u Songs of Eternity and Sorrow Op.36 East and west on fields forgotten Ian Venables (b.1955) I wish one could know them, I wish there were Bleach the bones of comrades slain, The Lent Lily tokens to tell Lovely lads and dead and rotten; Easter Hymn The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern; None that go return again. ‘Tis spring; come out to ramble And then one could talk with them friendly and Far the calling bugles hollo, The hilly brakes around, If in that Syrian garden, ages slain, wish them farewell High the screaming fife replies, For under thorn and bramble You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain, And watch them depart on the way that they will Gay the files of scarlet follow; About the hollow ground Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright, not return. Woman bore me, I will rise. The primroses are found. Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night The hate you died to quench and could but fan, Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

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But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by, ‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair Because I liked you better At the right hand of majesty on high as his; You sit, and sitting so remember yet In the good old time `twas hanging for the colour Because I liked you better Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat, that it is; Than suits a man to say, Your cross and passion and the life you gave, Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying It irked you, and I promised Bow hither out of heaven and see and save. would be fair To throw the thought away. For the nameless and abominable colour of When green buds hang in the elm like dust his hair. To put the world between us We parted, stiff and dry; When green buds hang in the elm like dust Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price ‘Good-bye,’ said you, ‘forget me.’ And sprinkle the lime like rain, he’s paid ‘I will, no fear’, said I. Forth I wander, forth I must, To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade; And drink of life again. But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the If here, where clover whitens Forth I must by hedgerow bowers world to see and stare, The dead man’s knoll, you pass, To look at the leaves uncurled, And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of And no tall flower to meet you And stand in the fields where cuckoo-flowers his hair. Starts in the trefoiled grass, Are lying about the world. Now `tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill Halt by the headstone naming, Oh who is that young sinner? for his feet The heart no longer stirred, And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in And say the lad that loved you Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on the heat, Was one that kept his word. his wrists? And between his spells of labour in the time he And what has he been after that they groan and has to spare shake their fists? He can curse the God that made him for the colour And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience- of his hair. stricken air? Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

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Horse BIOGRAPHIES performances of Britten include Nocturne with the Peter Warlock songs, Judith Weir On Buying a BBCHorn National and Strings Orchestra of Wales, (also released , Elgar Spirit of England with Susan Gritton withIlluminations BBC Music Magazine), Serenade for Tenor, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra/Lloyd Jones. ANDREW KENNEDY with the CBSO, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC NOW, Les www.intermusica.co.uk Andrew Kennedy was born in Ashington, and with the Scottish Ensemble, studied at King’s College, Cambridge and the Edinburgh International Festival. Royal College of Music in London. He was also a SIMON CRAWFORD-PHILlIPS member of the Young Artists Programme at the Equally passionate about song repertoire, Andrew Royal Opera, Covent Garden. gives numerous recitals around Europe and the UK Simon Crawford-Phillips is developing an most recently appearing at the Wigmore Hall with unusually diverse career as soloist, chamber Andrew has won numerous prizes and awards Julius Drake and at the Leeds Lieder Festival with musician and song accompanist. A Masters including the 2005 BBC Singer of the World Iain Burnside. Other performances include an Degree and a Fellowship at the Guildhall School of Rosenblatt Recital Prize, the 2002 London Handel appearance at the Cadogan Hall with Paul Music & Drama followed his studies at the Royal Competition, the Song Prize in the 2003 Richard Crossley for the 2005 BBC Proms, the opening Academy of Music in London. He continues Tauber Competition, second prize in the 2004 recital for the 2005/6 Concertgebouw recital studying with Ferenc Rados. Kathleen Ferrier Awards and the Queen Elizabeth Rake’s Progress series in Amsterdam with Roger Vignoles and © Benjamin Ealovega Rosebowl from the Royal College of Music in numerous studio recordings for BBC Radio 3. His concerto performances have included recognition of outstanding achievement. He is a d’amore, Opera North and Tom Rakewell The Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich, Schumann and Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and won the Royal , La Monnaie and Opéra de Lyon. Recent BBC recordings include Strauss orchestral Stravinsky with orchestras such as ViVA, the Philharmonic Society Young Artists’ Award in songs and Finzi’s Dies Natalis with the BBC Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber 2006. He is also a member of Radio 3’s New Concert engagements include Jaquino Fidelio, National Orchestra of Wales, Liszt songs with the Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Generation Artists Scheme. Francesco Benvenuto Cellini, LSO/Sir Colin Davis, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Belohlavek and Mozart he has also performed with the BBC Scottish Junger Seeman and Hirt Tristan und Isolde, and Handel arias with the BBC Scottish Symphony Symphony Orchestra and in Japan with the HeNight’s has Dreamperformed Tamino The Magic Flute and Edinburgh International Festival, Mozart Requiem, Orchestra, alongside recitals of Schubert songs at NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Fenton Sir John in Love, ENO, Flute A Midsummer London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jurowski, Mozart LSO St. Luke’s with Stephen Osborne and Janacek’s Alan Gilbert. , Royal Opera House, Jaquino Fidelio, Mass in C Minor, Hallé Orchestra/Elder and Berlioz Diary of One who Vanished at the City of London Glyndebourne Festival, Ferrando Cosi fan tutte, Grande Messe de Morts, LSO/Tortelier and at the Festival and in studio with Julius Drake. Andrew’s Simon frequently works with singers such as Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Nemorino L’elisir Royal Albert Hall with the RPO. Recent orchestral fast growing discography includes a solo disc of Emma Bell, Measha Brueggergosman, Alice Coote,

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Sarah Fox, James Gilchrist, Andrew Kennedy and Obertsdorf, Oslo, Schwetzinger, Spoleto, Music, London and later with Andrew Downes, Robert Murray, and instrumentalists Emily Schleswig-Holstein and Verbier), Simon has also John Mayer and John Joubert in Birmingham. Beynon, Colin Currie, Martin Frost, Richard been invited to the Open Chamber Music Sessions Hosford, Pekka Kuusisto, Lawrence Power, at Prussia Cove in Cornwall. Other chamber music His compositions encompass many genres, and in Christian Poltera, and Roger Tapping. He also collaborations include return visits to Wigmore particular he has added significantly to the canon appears regularly as a guest with the Nash Hall, Cadogan Hall and a Musica Viva tour of of English art song. Worthy of note are his four Ensemble, ECO chamber ensemble, Leopold String Australia with the Finnish violinist Pekka SongOp.22 Cycles: (1995); Love’s Invite Voice to Eternity - Four Op.31 Venetian (1997) Songs for Trio and Dante Quartet. Kuusisto. Simon is co-director of the Wye Valley tenor and string quartet; Songs of Eternity and Chamber Music Festival held every January. Sorrow Op.36 (2005) for tenor, string quartet and Simon is a founding member of the Kungsbacka piano, Piano Trio, which was selected for the BBC New In addition to radio and television broadcasts in tenor, andclarinet On the and Wings piano. of Love Op.38 (2006) for Generation Artists Scheme. With the Trio he has Europe, Australia and Japan he has also recorded Other songs for solo appeared at Carnegie Hall and at major European for the BIS, Deux-Elles, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, voice and piano include Two Songs Op.28 (1997) Concert Halls, including the Concertgebouw, Naxos and Signum CD labels. andof theSix Songspoisoned Op.33 Rose (1999) Op. as20 well (1994) as ‘A Dramatic Vienna Konzerthaus and Cologne Philharmonie, Scena’ for counter-tenor and piano - At the Court Berlin Philharmonie, Schwetzinger Festspiele and Simon is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. (1995) . His many Muziekcentrum Vredensburg in Utrecht. With the He holds teaching positions at the Guildhall School chamber works include a Piano Quintet Op.27 Trio he has toured Argentina and Uruguay, of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Music awake,and the a worldString isQuartet Op.32 (1997) as well Australia and New Zealand. The trio has recorded and the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. as smaller pieces for solo instruments and piano. for the Naxos and BIS labels. He has also written worksyoung forOp.34 choir - Awake, www.lauratearmanagement.com (1996) (Three Choirs

Simon made his BBC Proms debut with his piano © Sussie Ahlburg Festival, Worcester 2001) - organ - Rhapsody Op.25 duo partner Philip Moore. The Duo were the IAN VENABLES , brass and solo piano. recipients of a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship and a concerto for two pianos by the German composer were nominated Steinway Artists. Highlights Detlev Glanert. Ian Venables was born in Liverpool in 1955 and He is an acknowledged expert on the 19th century include debut concerts at the Concertgebouw in was educated at Liverpool Collegiate Grammar poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds, Amsterdam and Edinburgh Festival, along with A performer at many of the European festivals School and then at Liverpool University where he and apart from setting five of his poems for voice return visits to the South Bank, Bridgewater Hall and (Bath, City of London, Cheltenham, Dubrovnik, read Social Sciences. He studied music with and piano he has contributed a significant essay Wigmore Hall. The Duo has also co-commissioned Edinburgh, Mecklenburg, Montpelier, Lofoten, Professor Richard Arnell at Trinity College of to the book John Addington Symonds-Culture and

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DANTE QUARTET quartets (shortlisted for the 2001 Gramophone Several new commissions are under way in Awards), and romantic Russian works by Lyapunov connection with the quartet’s “Divine Comedy Krysia Osostowicz - violin and Gretchaninov. In 2008 the Dante Quartet Project”, an invitation to composers to write Giles Francis - violin embarks on a series of recordings for Hyperion, pieces of music inspired by various aspects of Judith Busbridge - viola starting with the quartets of Fauré and Franck. Dante’s epic trilogy. Bernard Gregor-Smith - ‘cello In 2004 the Dante Quartet launched its own www.dantequartet.org Winner of the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Summer Music Festival in Cornwall, based in and www.dantefestival.org Society Award for Chamber Music in 2007, the around Launceston: a thriving and eclectic event Dante Quartet is known for the emotional intensity where quartet concerts alternate with folk music, of its performances and for imaginative children’s events, walks, feasting and dancing. programming, coupled with a keen dedication to the great classics. The quartet was founded in The Dante Quartet also enjoys a special association 1995 at the International Musicians Seminar at with King’s College, Cambridge, where it collaborates Prussia Cove, Cornwall, and chose the name of with the renowned King’s College Choir, gives © Graham J. Lloyd Dante to reflect the idea of a great and masterclasses and attracts new audiences to the Demon Desire (Macmillan Press Ltd, 2000). He challenging journey. quartet concerts combining music with poetry.

is the current chairman of the Ivor Gurney Society © Peter Whyte and his continuing work on the music of Ivor The Dante Quartet plays at major concert halls, Gurney has led to orchestrations of two of Gurney’s music societies and festivals throughout the UK - songs (2003)-counterparts to the two songs including Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh, Bath, This recording was made with the financial assistance of Finzi Friends, The P 2008 The copyright in this recording is owned by Signum Records Ltd. orchestrated by Herbert Howells-and a newly Cheltenham, Spitalfields and City of London Ivor Gurney Society and The Housman Society. C 2008 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd. www.geraldfinzi.com edited version of Gurney’s War Elegy, with Philip Festival - broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording of Signum Compact Lancaster. His songs are published by Novello and www.ivor.gurney.net Discs constitutes an infringement of copyright and will render the infringer liable to an action by law. and has also performed in France, Holland, Spain, www.housman-society.co.uk Licences for public performances or broadcasting may be obtained from Phonographic Company Ltd. Performance Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval Switzerland, Poland and Finland. system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording Recorded at Potton Hall, Suffolk, England, 5 - 7 February 2007 or otherwise, without prior permission from Signum Records Ltd. He was recently been described as ‘perhaps the Producer - Adrian Peacock 2007 saw the release of the Dante Quartet’s latest Engineer - Mike Hatch finest song composer of his generation’. SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, CD, of Janacek’s string quartets (Meridian Editor - David Hinitt Cover Photo - Benjamin Ealovega Middx UB6 7JD, UK +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: [email protected] Records). Other recordings include Rubbra’s www.ianvenables.com Design and Artwork - Woven Design www.signumrecords.com www.chesternovello.com www.wovendesign.co.uk - 22 - - 23 -