Jack Liebeck & Anna Tilbrook – The Music of Frederick Laurence (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:11 minutes | 904 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
“The Music of Frederick Laurence” is an intriguing new album featuring many previously unknown works from the British composer Frederick Laurence, performed by two of the country’s best-known musicians, violinist Jack Liebeck and pianist Anna Tilbrook. This unique collection exhibits Laurence’s avant-garde writing for solo piano, as well as violin and piano duo, promising a rediscovery of his distinct contributions to early 20th-century British music. The album showcases Laurence’s transformative journey, marked by experimental compositions and a name change in the aftermath of World War I. The composer’s rich early works include the unconventional Interludes for Pianoforte, Op.11, and the daring Phases, Op.18. Noteworthy is the Sonata for Violin and Piano, a work reflecting Laurence’s peak creative period. As a prominent figure in film accompaniment history, Laurence’s legacy unfolds through his original score for the Russian fairy tale film Morozko (1924). Violinist Jack Liebeck, renowned for collaborations with leading orchestras worldwide, and pianist Anna Tilbrook, a regular in major concert halls, celebrate a composer whose influence extends from classical stages to pioneering film scores.
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Alessandro Fisher & Anna Tilbrook – A Gardener’s World (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:50 minutes | 570 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rubicon
During the period of lockdown in 2020, tenor Alessandro Fisher and his wife spent many hours in their garden. A heightened awareness of the beauty of nature, the flowers in their garden and the changes to the garden as winter moved to spring, and then to summer formed the basis of this beautifully curated recital.
All the songs are about flowers, the language of flowers, and flowers as a tokens of love. Above all, the album is about the way songs of the many composers on this album reference deep human emotions and the role of flowers in these emotions.
Where words fail, the language of flowers and nature take over. Nature regenerates, life continues, though for some composers, the short- lived glory of flowers is also an allegory for loss, or indeed the transience of romantic love.
This live recording was made by BBC Radio 3 at the Wigmore Hall in London. Alessandro was the recipient of a BBT Fellowship in 2022.
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Lucy Crowe and Anna Tilbrook – Longing. Lieder by Strauss, Berg, Schoenberg (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:03 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Lucy Crowe makes her Linn recital debut with a programme of lieder by Berg, Richard Strauss and Schoenberg, which perfectly highlights why she is known as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation. Lucy is joined by pianist Anna Tilbrook, with whom she has forged a near symbiotic connection over a twenty-year professional partnership, comprising numerous performances at Wigmore and Queen Elizabeth Halls, London, and Carnegie Hall, New York. The programme encompasses both the beginning and end of Strauss’s prodigious songwriting career with five songs from his first published set Acht Gedichte aus Letzte Bl”atter plus his posthumously published swansong of sublime beauty, Vier letzte Lieder. Berg’s Sieben fruhe Lieder are landmark compositions which invoke the late Romantic world of Strauss; they sit alongside Vier Lieder by Berg’s mentor Schoenberg, whose post-Wagnerian chromaticism points to the composer’s later style. Following their Wigmore Hall performance in June 2020 The Guardian stated: “Berg’s Seven Early Songs suits Crowe uncommonly well, with her exquisite tone, fastidious sense of line, and understated but telling way with words’e.
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James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook – Solitude (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:18 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
James Gilchrist’s theme for this recital, “Solitude”, is reflected in varied and contrasting ways by the four works. In his booklet note, he describes solitude as ‘A state of being that we need, that perhaps we overlook too easily, that is harder to achieve and harder to endure and understand than we expect’. Henry Purcell’s O! Solitude, my sweetest choice (in the arrangement by Benjamin Britten) focuses on twin themes of solitude: the peace found in the meditative state and the pain felt by being separated from loved ones.
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James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook, The Fitzwilliam String Quartet – Ralph Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:09:34 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
A brilliant and moving recital coupling song cycles by Vaughan Williams, Warlock, and Gurney along with a very special stand alone song by Bliss, this disc by tenor James Gilchrist with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, pianist Anna Tilbrook, flutist Michael Cox, and English hornist Gareth Hulse will thrill fans of English twentieth century vocal music. Each of the works had an interesting genesis. Vaughan Williams’ On Wenlock Edge setting of six poems from A.E. Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad” was written in 1909 at the high tide of the composer’s keenness on French music. Ivor Gurney’s Ludlow & Teme setting of seven poems from “A Shropshire Lad” was written in 1919 immediately following the composer’s first hearing of On Wenlock Edge. Peter Warlock’s The Curlew setting of four poems by W.B. Yeats was written in 1915 — without the poet’s permission (Yeats capitulated only after the work was published in 1923). And Arthur Bliss’ Elegiac Sonnet setting of a poem by Cecil Day Lewis for Noel Mewton-Wood, the Australian virtuoso pianist and film composer — remember his ornithological comedy Tawney Pitpit? — who killed himself after his lover Bill Fredricks died from a ruptured appendix, was written in 1954 immediately after the composer and poet had collaborated on A Song of Welcome greeting Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh on their return from a grand tour of the Commonwealth. And each of the performers is equally interesting. Gilchrist, a full-time doctor before he became a full-time tenor, sings with unfeigned enthusiasm, undisguised affection, and consummate musicality. The Fitzwilliam Quartet, the group that got its big break performing Shostakovich for Shostakovich, plays with tonal beauty, robust energy, and complete sympathy for the music and singer. Pianist Tilbrook is a big-toned but sensitive player, flutist Cox is a subtle but soulful player, and English hornist Hulse is a throaty but touching player. They all perform together with polish, power, and passion and the result is a superb disc of English art songs. Linn Records’ super audio sound is incredibly clear and unbelievably real. –James Leonard
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