SRCD.304 STEREO ADD HUGH WOOD DISC ONE DISC TWO HUGH WOOD (b.1932) PRIAULX RAINIER (1903-1986) STRING QUARTETS 1 &2 String Quartet No. 1 Op. 4 (1962) * (16’37”) 1 Quanta (1962) *** (12’29”) THE RIDER VICTORY 1 1st Movement: Introduzione: attacca (3’08”) 2 String Trio (1966) *** (15’18”) nd 2 2 Movement: - Scherzo and Trio (3’44”) LENNOX BERKELEY (1903 -1989) THE HORSES rd 3 3 Movement: Adagietto (2’56”) 3 Duo for cello & piano Op. 18 part 1 (1971) **** (5’56”) th 4 4 Movement: Finale (6’49”) Dartington String Quartet (1920 -1990) 5 String Quartet No. 2 Op.13 (1970) * (13’38”) PETER RACINE FRICKER Sonata for cello & piano Op. 28 (1956) **** (15’47”) The Horses Op. 10 (1967) ** (10’46”) April Cantelo & Paul Hamburger 4 1st Movement: Fiery & Passionate (3’14”) To poems by Ted Hughes 5 2nd Movement: Slow (5’01”) 6 1. The Horses (6’28”) 6 3rd Movement: Very Fast (3’00”) 7 2. Pennines in April (1’23”) 7 4th Movement: Quietly & Steadily (4’32”) 8 3. September (2’55”) FRICKER The Rider Victory Op. 11 (1968) ** (8’31”) MARTIN DALBY (b. 1942) To poems by Edwin Muir 8 Variations for cello & piano (1966) **** (8’45”) BERKELEY 9 1. The Rider Victory (1’17”) JOHN McCABE (b.1939) 10 2. Sorrow (2’19”) 9 Partita for Solo Cello (1966) **** (15’45”) DALBY 11 3. The Bird (1’21”) Theme (1’04”), Marcia Giocosa (1’21”), Aria (2’30”) 12 4. The Confirmation (3’34”) Reprise (0’50”), Jig (1’30”), Canons (3’05”) (49’38) Marcia Funèbre (3’12”), Finale (2’13”) (74’10”) McCABE * Dartington String Quartet *** London Oboe Quartet Colin Sauer & Malcolm Latchem, violins Janet Craxton, oboe Perry Hart, violin RAINIER Keith Lovell, viola Michael Evans, cello Brian Hawkins, viola Kenneth Heath, cello ** April Cantelo, soprano **** Julian Lloyd Webber, cello Julian Lloyd Webber Paul Hamburger, piano John McCabe, piano John McCabe The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end * **P 1974 ***P 1970 ****P 1977 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England London Oboe Quartet This compilation and digital remastering P 2009 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England C 2009 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Made in the UK LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth, NP25 3WX, UK HUGH WOOD was born in Parbold, Lancashire, on 27 June 1932. He read modern history www.lyrita.co.uk at Oxford, subsequently taking up full-time musical study (with William Lloyd Webber, Anthony Milner, Iain Hamilton and Mátyás Seiber). He taught music at Morley College Notes © 2009 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England (1958-67), the Royal Academy of Music (1962-75), Glasgow (1966-70) and Liverpool (1971-75) Original recordings made in association with the BRITISH COUNCIL Universities, and finally Cambridge (1976-99), where he was a Fellow of Churchill College. He is an experienced broadcaster and writer on music. The recording of works by Hugh Wood was originally released in 1974 on Argo LP ZRG 750 He has embraced chamber genres, with five string quartets (1962, 1970, 1978, 1993 Recording location and date: Kingsway Hall, London. January & March 1973 and 2001), a piano trio (1984), a horn trio (1989), a clarinet trio (1997) and a clarinet quintet Producer: James Burnet. Engineer: Stanley Goodall (2007). Orchestral works include a cello concerto (1969), two violin concertos (1972, 2004), a piano concerto (1991), a symphony (1982) and a set of variations, written for the B.B.C. The recording of works by Priaulx Rainier was originally released in 1970 on Argo LP ZRG 660 Symphony Orchestra and performed at the 1998 Last Night of the Proms. Among his many The master tape of works by Priaulx Rainier could not be found, this transfer from LP by Norman vocal works are settings of poems by Laurie Lee, Robert Graves, Ted Hughes, Pablo Neruda, White T. S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence. The recording of works by Berkeley, Fricker, Dalby & McCabe was originally released in 1977 on String Quartet No.1, Wood’s first B.B.C. commission, was completed in June 1962 for L’Oiseau-Lyre LP DSLO 18 the Dartington Quartet, who premièred it the following month at a Cheltenham Festival Recording location and date: St John’s, Smith Square, London. March 1976 concert. The short opening Introduzione presents themes to be developed throughout the Producer: Peter Wadland. Engineer: John Dunkerley work. Duets between pairs of instruments precede a climax. A long-held note ushers in the muted, evanescent Scherzo, which generates a characteristically dance-like momentum. Digital Remastering Engineer: Simon Gibson The central Trio revisits material from the Introduzione, followed by a varied repeat of the Scherzo. A brief Adagietto, nocturnal and elegant, draws to a hushed and open-ended conclusion. After three short movements, the Finale is weighty and elaborate, opening with a shadowy introduction that reviews material from earlier movements. This ends in a version of the first movement’s climax, heralding a vigorousAllegro with contrasting themes. There is a lyrical, contrapuntal central episode and both Scherzo and Introduzione are quoted before the recapitulation. The quartet ends in trenchant vein. String Quartet No.2 Op.13 marks a conscious attempt by Wood to expand his expressive range. Dating from April 1970, it was premièred on 6 November that year by the Dartington Quartet at a B.B.C. Invitation Concert from Cardiff. There are 39 continuous sections, of which several, especially at the beginning and end of the piece, consist of unmeasured notes sounded rapidly by the four players without synchronisation. The composer has WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public performance, described the opening riotous outburst that recurs frequently as a ‘cauldron’ from which copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public performance may be thematic elements are plucked. It alternates firstly with a narrowly semitonal section, and obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE later with pizzicatos and convulsive tremolando. A more capricious group, punctuated 2 11 The Bird by brief scherzando passages, leads to the work’s chilly ‘still centre’, from which arises the Adventurous bird walking upon the air, slow material’s most substantial utterance. The recapitulation recovers dynamic energy, Like a schoolboy running and loitering, leaping and springing, though its sections become increasingly terse, with the exception of the deeply expressive Pensively pausing, suddenly changing your mind penultimate section. To turn at ease on the heel of a wing-tip. Where In all the crystalline world was there to find Wood, a natural lyricist, has been inspired frequently by English lyric poetry. The For your so delicate walking and airy winging Horses for high voice and piano, stemming from his enthusiasm for Ted Hughes’ early poetry, A floor so perfect, so firm and so fair, was commissioned by the Dartington Summer School of Music, where two of the poems And where a ceiling and walls so sweetly ringing, (‘The Horses’ and ‘September’) were premièred in August 1967 by Jane Manning and Susan Whenever you sing, to your clear singing? Bradshaw. ‘Pennines in April’ was completed later and the complete set was performed at The wide-winged soul itself can ask no more the Wigmore Hall, London by the same artists on 13 November 1967. The following year, Than such a pure, resilient and endless floor after some revisions, they were offered to William Glock on the occasion of his sixtieth For its strong-pinioned plunging and soaring and upward birthday. In the substantial scena-like first song, ‘The Horses’, recurring images in the poem and upward springing. have thematic equivalents, low sonorous chords in the piano suggesting the massiveness of The Confirmation the horses, high trills and clusters the curlew. In the lively, scherzo-like ‘Pennines in April’, Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face. the range of hills is evoked in a surging movement. The final song, ‘September’, is a direct I in my mind had waited for this long, setting of a tranquil, wistful remembrance of summer and memories of love. Seeing the false and searching for the true, The Rider Victory for high voice and piano was composed in the spring of 1968. It Then found you as a traveller finds a place is directly related to Wood’s position as Cramb Research Fellow at Glasgow University. Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong Setting poems by Edwin Muir, whose early career was based in Glasgow, the collection is Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you, what shall I call you? A fountain in a waste, dedicated to ‘Professor F. Rimmer and the Cramb Trustees’ and first performed by Josephine A well of water in a country dry, MacQueen and Julian Dawson at Fore Hall, Glasgow University on 28 November 1968. The Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye opening song, ‘The Rider Victory’, is a lively Vivace characterised by whole-tone fanfares in That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart, the piano. ‘Sorrow’ is a pensive slow movement and ‘The Bird’ an airy scherzo, whilst ‘The Simple with giving, give the primal deed, Confirmation’ is a rapt and passionate love song, ending in a mood of hushed intensity. The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed. The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea, PRIAULX RAINIER was born on 3 February 1903 at Howick, Natal, South Africa, of English- Not beautiful or rare in every part, But like yourself, as they were meant to be.