![Roderick Williams, Martin Ford, Vasari Singers, Jeremy Backhouse - Vaughan Williams, Elgar & Others: British Sacred Choral Works (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/18/lij3udyq1pwrc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Roderick Williams, Martin Ford, Vasari Singers, Jeremy Backhouse – Vaughan Williams, Elgar & Others: British Sacred Choral Works (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:16:14 minutes | 2,48 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos
Featuring Vaughan Williams’ masterly and intensely personal Five Mystical Songs, this album reflects on the sources of inspiration of some of his sacred choral works, alongside gems of 19th- and early-20th-century English church music. Often setting the poetry of the King James Bible, the finely spun melodies and sensitivity to word-rhythm of composers from S. S. Wesley to Herbert Howells result in a uniquely British form of expression.
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![Roderick Williams, Clare Hammond, Fidelio Trio, St Paul's Sinfonia - Robert Saxton: Portrait (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/28/pcamgb5zde8pc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Roderick Williams, Clare Hammond, Fidelio Trio, St Paul’s Sinfonia – Robert Saxton: Portrait (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:38 minutes | 633 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Metier
These works by Robert Saxton were written between 2013 and 2019 and represent his continuing journey of exploration in modal and harmonic structures; complex in structure but creating no jarring modernist difficulty for the listener. A mix of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, it features top performers including world-renowned baritone Roderick Williams and equally famous (and now film star) Clare Hammond. Robert Saxton received early guidance from Benjamin Britten and studied with Elisabeth Lutyens, Robin Holloway and Luciano Berio among others. He has received commissions from the BBC (TV, radio and Proms) and many prominent ensembles. Until retiring in 2021 Robert was Professor of Composition at Oxford University and is a Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. Time and the Seasons, for baritone and piano, commissioned by the Oxford Lieder Festival for Roderick Williams and Andrew West, is a song cycle to Saxton’s own texts and is both cyclic and progressive. Suite for violin and piano, first performed at the 2019 Three Choirs Festival by Madeleine Mitchell and Clare Hammond, the performers here, charts a voyage across its five movements leading to a tentatively positive conclusion. Fantasy Pieces, commissioned by the Fidelio Trio, is inspired by Schumann’s Op. 88 as character pieces, regarding both genre and variety of manner. A Hymn to the Thames for solo oboe and chamber orchestra was commissioned by James Turnbull, the St Paul’s Sinfonia and its Music Director Andrew Morley and, during the course of its four linked movements, sets the soloist as both wanderer and river spirit in conjunction with the ‘river’ of the orchestra from source to sea.
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![Roderick Williams, Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs, Vol. 4 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/05/21/qxa2uxih0xarc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
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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![Roderick Williams, Sophie Bevan, James Gilchrist, Coull Quartet - On This Shining Night (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/18/w5a9ox9df6uwc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Roderick Williams, Sophie Bevan, James Gilchrist, Coull Quartet – On This Shining Night (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:55 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings
SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a thrilling first collaboration between long-time SOMM stablemates, baritone Roderick Williams and the Coull Quartet, joined by tenor James Gilchrist and soprano Sophie Bevan. With six first recordings, On This Shining Night is a ravishing recital focusing revealingly on a 20th-century phenomenon: works for voice and string quartet. It takes its title from a James Agate setting by Samuel Barber (whose masterly Dover Beach is also heard), here in a sublime arrangementby Roderick Williams. Williams also provides arrangements of Barbers Sleep Now and three Frederick Delius pieces from his Seven Songs from the Norwegian: the evocative Twilight Fancies, vivacious Young Venevil and exotic I-Brasil. They serve, as Robert Matthew-Walkers erudite booklet notes observe, as companions to 11 songs by Deliuss close friend and associate, Peter Warlock, including the gentle intimacy of Corpus Christi, the mini-cantata Sorrows Lullaby, and unique free-recitative of My gostly vader.Composed for Williams and the Coull Quartet, Sally Beamishs five-part Tree Carols offer striking, variegated settings of poems by Fiona Sampson in their premiere recording.
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Roderick Williams, City of London Choir, Hilary Davan Wetton – Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 25:51 minutes | 507 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) is a children’s cantata composed in a popular style for unison or two-part voices and piano, with optional bass and drums. The libretto by Michael Flanders is an adaptation of the Biblical tale of Noah found in Genesis chapters 6–9. It is one of a series of “pop cantatas” commissioned for school use by Novello, including The Daniel Jazz (1963) by Herbert Chappell, Jonah-Man Jazz (1966) by Michael Hurd and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1968).
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Roderick Williams and Susie Allan – A Birthday Garland (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:05 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings
SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Vaughan Williams – A Birthday Garland, the debut on disc of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan’s popular concert tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams originally marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2022. Curating a “fantasy birthday party concert” in tribute to “the grand-daddy of 20th-century English song”, Williams has assembled pieces by RVW and 18 fellow composers. The result is a wide-ranging celebration of the rich variety of English song over a century and more that pays tribute to Vaughan Williams’ influence with songs inspired by poets ranging from Shakespeare and Tennyson to W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman. First recordings include Herbert Howell’s The Sorrow of Love, a setting of the Irish poet Seamus O’Sullivan; Sarah Cattley’s A Square and Candle-lighted Boat, treating verses by RVW’s cousin, Frances Cornford; and Roderick Williams’ own distinctive take on William Blake’s The Shepherd. The 30-song recital includes songs by RVW’s teachers (Stanford, Parry, Wood, Bruch, Ravel), friends (Holst, Gurney, Howells, Butterworth, Finzi and others), and pupils (Grace Williams, Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Elizabeth Maconchy and Madeleine Dring). Vaughan Williams’ biographer Simon Heffer provides authoritative booklet notes. SOMM’s previous Vaughan Williams releases include the widely acclaimed four-volume Vaughan Williams Live series (SOMM ARIADNE 5016, 5018, 5019-2, 5020); Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omordia’s “compelling” (International Piano) survey of his Piano Music (SOMMCD 0164); and the “priceless document” (MusicWeb International) coupling the Fifth Symphony and Dona nobis pace (SOMMCD 071). Roderick Williams and Susie Allan’s previous SOMM releases include Celebrating English Song (SOMMCD 0177), lauded by Gramophone as “a treat”; the Ivor Gurney-focused Severn & Somme (SOMM 057), “strongly recommended” by BBC Music Magazine; and Somervell’s A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), “performances of much beauty, empathy and sensitivity” (British Music Society).
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Ailish Tynan, Roderick Williams, Kathryn Rudge & Christopher Glynn – Schumann in English, Vol. 1 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:18:26 minutes | 2,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Christopher Glynn continues his Lieder in English series by joining three of today’s foremost singers to perform Robert Schumann’s best-loved song cycles in new English versions by Jeremy Sams – a new way to encounter and enjoy some of the most romantic and atmospheric songs ever composed.
‘Schumann is one of music’s great storytellers – and never more so than in the song cycles of 1840. These vivid new translations by Jeremy Sams recreate the immediacy and intimacy of his storytelling for modern English-speaking listeners, offering a new perspective on these famous songs of loneliness and love, joy and sorrow, marriage, and separation.’ – Christopher Glynn
Read more![Lucy Crowe, Roderick Williams, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Choir, Mark Elder - James MacMilllan Christmas Oratorio (Live) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/09/tqo5y1nf391bb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Lucy Crowe, Roderick Williams, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Choir, Mark Elder – James MacMilllan Christmas Oratorio (Live) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:34:11 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © London Philharmonic Orchestra
This recording captures the UK premiere performance of James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, performed and recorded in the presence of the composer. The world premiere of the work was given by the Dutch Radio Philharmonic and Choir in Amsterdam in January 2021. The LPO was due to give the world premiere of the work however, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the performance came on December 4 2021, a year later than planned.
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Sir Mark Elder, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Roderick Williams – Delius: A Mass of Life (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:34:21 minutes | 2,96 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Lawo Classics
Roderick Williams heads up the cast for this new recording of Delius’ A Mass of Life with the Bergen Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Accompanied by soloists Gemma Summerfield, Claudia Huckle and Bror Magnus Todenes, the Bergen Philharmonic Choir and Edvard Grieg Kor join Collegium Musicum Choir to complete the tour de force needed to perform and record this monumental work.
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Christopher Glynn, Roderick Williams, Rowan Pierce – Schubert in English Vol. 4 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:13:41 minutes | 2,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Christopher Glynn continues his series “Schubert in English” and, together with baritone Roderick Williams and soprano Rowan Pierce, sings songs about loneliness and companionship, nature and the seasons, faith and doubt, wandering and homecoming, caution and comfort – all in new English versions by Jeremy Sams.
“No songwriter has more to say to us than Schubert. I have commissioned these new translations in the hope of making his songs accessible to a wider audience and also to offer a new perspective to those who know them well.
“A good translation is an act of homage – a retelling, not a substitute – and, like the film adaptation of a classic novel, can be a stepping stone to the original or can also be enjoyed on its own.
“We hope that listeners will enjoy these new versions, in which Jeremy Sams restores the immediacy of Schubert’s narrative for a modern English-speaking audience.” (Christopher Glynn)
Read more![Sir Andrew Davis, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Roderick Williams - Elgar: Falstaff & Orchestral Songs (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/09/03/d06g4co39l0dc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Sir Andrew Davis, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Roderick Williams – Elgar: Falstaff & Orchestral Songs (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:23 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Aside from Elgar’s fascinating and obligatory Falstaff composed in 1913 (a Symphonic Study according to the partition, but in reality a symphonic poem in the grand tradition of Strauss— about whom Elgar probably thought when he wrote his masterpiece, and the rather present solo cello cannot help but remind us of Strauss’ Don Quixote, composed sixteen years earlier), the album distinguishes itself by a few melodies with orchestra from the same Elgar, a repertoire unfortunately too often neglected and yet of breathtaking beauty (we hear, in a pinch, the Sea Pictures performed from time to time, but that’s all folks). And when you know that it’s the now very famous baritone Roderick Williams on the mic, we can only applaud the initiative of Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic to feature these splendors once again. Elgar proves to us here that, far from just being a great master of large symphonic-vocal soundscapes in the form of oratorio (we obviously think about The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Music Makers), he handles the miniature with genius. Roderick Williams, one of the most beautiful voices of today’s British scene, grasps these rarities with a joy that is as rare as these pieces. The album closes on a hilarious wink, the Smoking Cantata, a cantata with a ginormous orchestration but that lasts… only 49 seconds, and whose text is limited to: “Kindly, Kindly, kindly do not SMOKE in the hall or staircase”. It’s the best British humor!
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Sacconi Quartet, Mary Bevan, Charles Owen, Roderick Williams – Roxanna Panufnik: Heartfelt (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:21 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Since Westminster Mass (2000) established Roxanna Panufnik’s firm place among today’sleading British composers, she has often been celebrated for her choral music. Her instrumental and chamber works, however, are equally striking, filled with dazzling imagination and poetic lightness of touch. Her latest album Heartfelt encompasses compassion, tragedy and irresistible humour, while demonstrating her passion for exploring diverse musical cultures, from East Sussex to Myanmar.
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Carolyn Sampson, Roderick Williams, Joseph Middleton – Sounds and Sweet Airs – A Shakespeare Songbook (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:24:53 minutes | 2,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The 37 songs in this recital, written by 27 composers – male, female, English, French, Swiss, German, Romantic, modern and contemporary – bear witness to the richness of Shakespeare’s works to which this recital is dedicated.
Organised in the form of a play in five acts, including prologue and epilogue, the songs, which include several duets, are in turn cheerful and sad, light and profound, classical and jazzy – thus allowing, in Carolyn Sampson’s words, ‘a breadth of responses to these great texts’. Alongside well-known melodies, such as those by Schubert, there are musical adaptations by different composers of the same texts, as well as a contemporary reflection for the two voices by Hannah Kendall exploring the question of gender fluidity and identity through the elusive character of Rosalind from As You Like It.
After many acclaimed releases on BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann, A Soprano’s Schubertiade and Elysium, two Schubert recitals, as well as a number of themed recitals, some of which were named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton are joined here by renowned British baritone Roderick Williams.
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Roderick Williams, James Way, Andrew West – Stanford: Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:50 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings
Somm beginns here a major new recording of songs by Charles Villiers Stanford including the first complete recording of Songs of Faith and 12 first recordings of other distinctively vital songs.
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Roderick Williams & Iain Burnside – Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:02 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Challenge Classics
In this, the first of a series of three recordings of Schubert’s great song cycles for Chandos, Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside bring their formidable talents to bear on one of the pinnacles of classical lieder. In November 2015, Roderick Williams decided to immerse himself in an intensive three-year period of studying and performing the three song cycles by Schubert, following an invitation from the Wigmore Hall. The process has involved not just performances in concert around the globe, but open rehearsals, master-classes, workshops, and radio broadcasts. Roderick Williams has documented all of these experiences in great detail in his fascinating “Schubert Cycle Project” blog. He writes: ‘Somewhere along the way I came to a decision; that my eventual performances at the Wigmore would not be the ultimate goal of my study; rather, the study itself, the act of preparation would be my focus. It is possible that other singers might find the process interesting, even if only to share some of the grind that is most often done alone; it is also possible that others might be intrigued, especially audiences, perhaps even (fellow) students.’
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