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This is a live concert recording but applause has been edited out for better enjoyment: listeners may be aware of a small amount of ambient and audience noise, and note less than ideal sound balance due to constraints on microphone placement. The texts of the poems are printed from page 9 Quartet SATB (accompanied by Peter Jacobs) X Samuel Wesley (1766-1837) 1 Birthday Song 1:26 Clare Griffel, mezzo-soprano (accompanied by Peter Jacobs) X Henry Purcell (1659-1695) 2 If music be the food of love 3:39 X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 3 Clouds 3:14 4 The Dancer 1:44 X Ernest J. Moeran (1895-1950) 5 Rosefrail 1:08 6 Rahoon 2:40 7 Loveliest of Trees 1:58 Peter Jacobs (piano solo) X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 8 Dorian Dirge 2:27 Paul Martyn-West, tenor (accompanied by Nigel Foster) X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 9 Lelant 3:01 X Ernest J. Moeran (1895-1950): Six Songs of Seamus O’Sullivan 10 1. Evening 2:32 11 2. Poplars 2:08 12 3. A Cottager 2:22 13 4. The Dustman 1:19 14 5. Lullaby 2:37 15 6. The Herdsman 3:27 Quartet SATB X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 16 Dawn 3:03 X Alison Edgar (1927-2007) (accompanied by Nigel Foster, Richard Carder and Patrick Miles) 17 Lyonesse 2:14 Ian Partridge, tenor (accompanied by Nigel Foster) X Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) 18 Salley Gardens 2:29 19 All night under the moon 3:25 20 Severn meadows 1:53 21 Nine of the clock, O 0:46 Georgina Colwell, soprano (accompanied by Nigel Foster) X Jeffrey Whitton (b.1957) 22 Little Vagabond 2:24 X Laura Shur 23 The Smile 3:33 X Sarah Rodgers (b.1953) 24 Acacia Tree 3:17 X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 25 Margaret’s Song 1:37 Jonathan Wood, baritone (accompanied by Peter Jacobs) X Ivor Gurney (1890-1937): Lights Out 26 1. Scents 2:34 27 2. Bright Clouds 2:00 28 3. Penny Whistle 2:56 29 4. Will you come? 2:06 30 5. Lights Out 3:17 Quartet SATB (accompanied by Nigel Foster) X Sulyen Caradon (b.1942) 31 O lovely England 1:37 total duration 75:07 The composers Samuel Wesley was the son of Charles, the Methodist hymn writer, but himself converted to Catholicism at the age of 18. He went on to become a professional musician, earning a meagre living as a composer and organist. The quartet sung on this CD was written for the birthday of his friend, the Prime Minister, Charles Fox. By sheer coincidence it was recorded on the birthday of the then current Prime Minister, Tony Blair! Ivor Gurney was the son of a tailor in Gloucester, where he sang in the Cathedral choir, and won a scholarship to study composition with Stanford at the Royal College of Music, where he wrote his first masterpiece, the Five Elizabethan Songs in 1913. He volunteered for the army and spent the First World War as a signaller for the Gloucesters in the trenches in France, where he also composed five more songs (including Severn Meadows) and many poems. During the conflict he was both gassed and wounded. After the war, he returned to the RCM under Vaughan Williams, who became a friend. Between 1919 and 1922 he wrote the majority of his 300 songs. His army pension book describes him as suffering from manic-depressive illness and, at the end of 1922, a severe bout of depression drove his brother – with whom he was living – to have him committed to an asylum, where he spent the rest of his life until, subsequently, he died of tuberculosis. His friend, Marion Scott, did much to help with performance and publication of his music. In 1925, Scott assembled a group of Gurney’s settings of Edward Thomas, but persuaded him that a new, powerful song was needed to complete the set. Gurney composed The Trumpet – which was one of his worst songs – though several other good songs were written in the asylum On this CD the published order (omitting The Trumpet) has been changed so that the poems follow the course of the day, from the fresh morning of Scents through to the final Lights Out – which he later described as “the best song in the world”, and echoes his earlier masterpiece, Sleep. This order has the additional benefit of unifying the tonality in D flat, the key of the first and last songs. In 1984, I won an award from the Worshipful Company of Musicians towards editing Gurney’s unpublished songs, about 30 of which have been performed in EPSS concerts. Ernest J. Moeran, known to his friends as Jack, was also in Stanford’s class at the RCM, and took part in the Great War as a dispatch rider, receiving a shrapnel wound to his head, which probably caused his premature death when he fell into the river at Kenmare in Ireland. His father was Irish, though a clergyman; his mother came from Norfolk, where Jack spent his childhood, and began collecting folk songs. After the War he resumed studies at the RCM with John Ireland whose highly chromatic harmony influenced his own style, along with that of Delius. He also became friendly with Peter Warlock – with whom he shared a cottage for some years in Kent – and Arnold Bax, with whom he shared a love of Ireland. He met Seamus O’ Sullivan when the poet arrived at his door one day unannounced saying that Moeran was just the man to set his poems to music. Moeran agreed, and the set of songs sung here resulted in 1943. Rahoon – a setting of the words of James Joyce – was dedicated to Kathleen Ferrier, who gave the first performance. Regarding the songs, Geoffrey Self says that they at last exorcised the ghosts of his friends Warlock and Delius, refining into a style “at once more simple, yet growing in pungency. Melodically the songs range widely in style. Evening, for example, is pentatonic, while The Poplars reaches back to the shapes of Norfolk folksong. Together with his settings of Joyce, they represent his finest work in accompanied song. In the final song, The Herdsman, the first line is set to a serene melody used previously in his Violin Concerto, but for the second line the music moves into the world of shadow. The enigmatic harmonies are ambiguous, and their flavour was to dominate his last music, as in the Sonata for Cello and Piano. Sulyen Caradon is of Cornish extraction, and had piano lessons from the age of five. He later studied with Peter Wishart at the Guildhall School of Music, and then with the Irish composer and conductor Michael Bowles in Birmingham. Bowles had been a friend of Moeran and conducted the first performance of his Cello Concerto in Dublin. The selection of songs on this CD has been written over the last 13 years, ranging from Clouds – written for the Rupert Brooke centenary in 1988 – to Margaret’s Song in 2001. The Dancer is dedicated to the publisher, Kenneth Roberton, who gave him the Irish folk-tune, The Silver Tip, which is incorporated into the piano part. Dorian Dirge was written in memory of a friend of the composer who died in a car crash while returning home after the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Future projects (at the time of writing these notes) include a ‘Forest Symphony’ and an opera on the life of King Bladud. Sulyen Caradon has an abiding concern for ecology, and still works with his local branch of Friends of the Earth. The other composers featured here have all been shortlisted in the composers’ competitions run by the English Poetry & Song Society, and live in London, except for Alison Edgar who lived in Christchurch, New Zealand. Notes © Richard Carder, 2003. The performers Georgina Colwell (soprano) studied singing at The Guildhall School of Music in London. Whilst she has sung demanding roles in opera, her main area of expertise is the recital in which she specialises in song. Georgina is a dedicated exponent of English song – running an annual summer school on this genre. Widely travelled, she delights in performing works by living composers. In addition to performing, she is the conductor of the TWIG Singers and the Albany Singers and teaches singing (and gives masterclasses in private practice). As an adjudicator she has used her experience and skills in the service of the English Poetry & Song Society. She is a member of the Association of English Singers and Speakers and The Incorporated Society of Musicians. However, her skills range beyond singing to teaching piano, music theory and violin as well as – in the role of qualified librarian – having recently completed organising the manuscripts of the composer, Peter Wishart. Georgina has made a number of recordings notably “This sceptred isle” (accompanied by Nigel Foster) a programme of English song for the British Music Society, and "If music be the food of love” which contains Shakespeare-inspired songs, a programme originally given at the Edinburgh Festival with the Canadian pianist, Margaret Bruce. Clare Griffel (mezzo) began singing seriously while a student of mathematics at Oxford. After moving to Bristol she studied with Mollie Petrie, with whom she obtained her LTCL performing diploma. Currently, she is working with Freda Hart. A former member of the BBC West of England Singers, she has sung with Bath opera, taking major roles, notably in Eugene Onegin and Lakmé. With a broadly-based, pre-classical-to-contemporary repertoire, many of the best-known choirs in the South-West – ranging from the Cheltenham Bach choir to the Bath Paragon Singers – have welcomed her as alto soloist.