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Roderick Williams, Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence – Ralph Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs, Vol. 4 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:38 minutes | 992 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Albion
This is the fourth and final volume in a series of albums recording all 81 of the folk songs in English that Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged for voice and piano or violin. 57 songs have not previously been recorded in these arrangements. This album has 19 tracks including 13 world premières.All but four of the songs were collected by Maud Karpeles in Newfoundland in 1929 and 1930. When she got back, she and Vaughan Williams spent some hours going through everything that she had found, selecting the 15 songs presented here – with an emphasis, it seems, on the sadder songs. As a result, many people will find this the most enjoyable album of the set. Maud Karpeles said that her life would have been worthwhile if collecting She’s Like the Swallow had been all that she had done.
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Nicky Spence, Christopher Glynn – Schubert: The Fair Maid of the Mill (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:23 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Signum Records
Christopher Glynn continues his series of Schubert in English releases with a new recording of ‘The Fair Maid of the Mill’ (Die schöne Müllerin) with acclaimed Scottish tenor Nicky Spence. Set to a new translation by writer and director Jeremy Sams, Willhelm Müller’s direct and emotionally-charged poetry became the basis of Schubert’s first cycle to tell a complete story over the course of its 20 songs. Nicky Spence is one of Scotland’s proudest sons and his unique skills as a singing actor and the rare honesty of his musicianship have earned him a place at the top of the classical music profession. Nicky won a record contract with Decca records while still studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and then took a place as an inaugural Harewood Artist at the ENO. Christopher Glynn is a Grammy award-winning pianist, praised for his ‘breathtaking sensitivity’ (Gramophone), ‘irre- pressible energy, wit and finesse’ (The Guardian) and ‘perfect fusion of voice and piano’ (BBC Music Magazine). He is also Artistic Director of the Ryedale Festival, where he has been praised as a ‘visionary’ and ‘inspired programmer’ (The Times).
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Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Joseph Middleton – A Most Marvellous Party: Noel Coward and Friends (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:24 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Noel Coward,celebrated musicians and regular Signum artists Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence and Joseph Middleton join forces for this album of works by Noel Cowardand his contemporaries.Featuring songs such as ‘Parisian Pierrot’ and ‘The Man I Love’, the album comprises of a collection ofsolos, duets and instrumental songs by composerssuch as Ned Rorem, Liza Lehmann, William Walton and Benjamin Britten.
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La Nuova Musica, David Bates, Tim Mead, Fleur Barron, Giulia Semenzato, Nicky Spence – Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:31 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
La Nuova Musica is one of the most versatile performing groups of its kind.
We strive to reveal new aspects of familiar repertoire, expose lesser-known works from the Baroque and Classical periods and showcase new commissions through dynamic performances and recordings.
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Nicky Spence, Mary Bevan, Fleur Barron, William Thomas, Dylan Perez, Joseph Middleton – Brahms: Liebeslieder, Op. 52 & 65 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:01 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Resonus Classics
Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder-Walzer (1869, 1875), Op. 52 and Op. 65, are a cheerful, short, witty set of songs full of anger, joy and rejection. These part-songs are accompanied by one piano, with four hands and any number of voices can perform any selection. These enchanting works are performed as part of Barbara Hannigan’s Momentum project, which teams up new talent with more established performers. Here, tenor Nicky Spence, soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Joseph Middleton are joined by three rising stars (mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, bass William Thomas and pianist Dylan Perez) in these love songs said to have been motivated by Brahms’s unrequited love for Clara Schumann.
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Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Roderick Williams, William Vann – Ralph Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs, Vol. 3 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:41 minutes | 983 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Albion
This is the third in a series of four albums recording all 81 of the folk songs in English that Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged for voice and piano or violin. 57 of the 81 songs have not previously been recorded in these arrangements.
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Claudia Huckle, Nicky Spence & Justin Brown – Das Lied von der Erde: Mahler’s Autograph Piano Version (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:02:54 minutes | 1,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Champs Hill Records
Anglo-German contralto Claudia Huckle, tenor Nicky Spence and pianist Justin Brown present Mahler’s autograph piano version of Das Lied von der Erde in this stunning new recording. The recording was a lockdown project, which provided Huckle with a focus for over a year during the pandemic. ‘During the spring of 2020, I realised that if I never performed again, my greatest regret would be never having sung Das Lied von der Erde. I have loved this piece since I was a teenager, and have always felt that for a German-speaking contralto like me it would be the biggest and most exciting musical challenge of all. I took Das Lied von der Erde off the shelf, and decided: it’s time. That’s how this recording was born. I am so pleased to have found the ideal partners for the project in tenor Nicky Spence and conductor/pianist Justin Brown, and to have brought it to fruition.’ [Claudia Huckle, contralto] Like many of Mahler’s song collections and cycles, Das Lied von der Erde was conceived in both a piano and orchestral version. Both were intended for the concert hall, but the piano version has remained overlooked and is virtually unknown. Yet there are persuasive advantages: ‘There is an intimacy in the writing which is intensified in the interplay of two musicians equally foregrounded; the poetry becomes more immediate, and the delicacy of much of the writing achieves a natural transparency.’ [Justin Brown, pianist/conductor] The recording is generously supported by the Gustav Mahler Society UK in partnership with Champs Hill Records.
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Alex Woolf, Nicky Spence, Iain Burnside, Philip Higham, Anthony Gray – Alex Woolf: Requiem (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:44 minutes | 956 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Delphian Records
A major statement by a composer still in his mid-twenties, Alex Woolfs Requiem, composed in 2018, combines powerful expressive immediacy with an impressive ability to synthesize the diverse traditions that have grown up around the requiem genre in the past two hundred years, as it has moved from the church into the concert hall. As in Brittens War Requiem, the traditional Latin texts are brought into dialogue with modern-day poetry here, three poems by the Welsh writer Gillian Clarke (who was National Poet of Wales from 2008 to 2016). Initially these exist in the separate sound-world of a solo tenor and piano, with a solo cello creating the bridge to the liturgical sphere of choir and organ. Yet ultimately, Clarkes very human concerns focus and inflect Woolfs approach to the religious texts, confirming the works trajectory from despair into consolation. Nicky Spence, fresh from his triumph at the 2020 BBC Music Magazine Awards, is the solo tenor, joined by Delphian artists Iain Burnside and Philip Higham; and Woolf conducts his own choir Vox Luna in this strikingly personal work.
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