The Schubert EnsembleGould Piano Trio

Felicity Lott & Joseph Middleton

CREDITS

Piano Quintet in A minorProduced, engineered and edited by Chris Craker

Recorded in the Music Room, Champs Hill, West Sussex, November of 2001

Seven SongsProduced & engineered by Alexander Van Ingen

Edited by Dave RowellRecorded in the Music Room, Champs Hill, West Sussex, 25th November, 2010

Piano Trio MovementsProduced & engineered and edited by Andrew Mellor

Recorded in the Music Room, Champs Hill, West Sussex, 20th October, 2010

Executive Producer for Champs Hill Records: Alexander Van Ingen

Elgar

PIANO QUINTET IN A MINOR, OP.84The Schubert EnsembleSimon Blendis and Ursula Gough ~ violins, Douglas Paterson ~ viola,Jane Salmon ~ ‘cello, William Howard ~ piano

01 i Moderato - Allegro 14’18

02 ii Adagio 12’51

03 iii Andante - Allegro 10’49

SEVEN SONGSFelicity Lott ~ soprano, Joseph Middleton ~ piano

04 The Shepherd’s Song (Op.16 No.1) 03’02

05 Pleading (Op.48) 02’42

06 Like to the Damask Rose 03’40

07 Is She Not Passing Fair? 02’46

08 Speak, Music (Op.42 No.2) 03’10

09 Rondel (Op.16 No.3) 01’34

10 Queen Mary’s Song 03’58

THREE MOVEMENTS FOR PIANOFORTE TRIOGould Piano TrioLucy Gould ~ violin, Alice Neary ~ ‘cello, Benjamin Frith ~ piano

11 1. Lento assai - Allegro moderato 07’44

12 2. Menuetto and Trio 06’10

13 3. March 04’35

77’21

TRACK LIST

Cover montage:Elgar: E O Hoppé, c.1915 (Raymond Monk Collection)Landscape: Looking North from Fulking Downs, West Sussex by Steve Geer

This page: Near Racton Folly, West Sussex by Steve Geer

Cover montage:Elgar: E O Hoppé, c.1915 (Raymond Monk Collection)Landscape: Looking North from Fulking Downs, West Sussex by Steve Geer

This page: Near Racton Folly, West Sussex by Steve Geer

WHEN ELGAR LIVED IN BRINKWELLS

Two miles uphill from the village of Fittleworth overlooking the Arun Valley is the smallcottage of Brinkwells. There, as the Great War staggered to its close, Elgar composed orworked on the four last great works of his creative life: three chamber works (ViolinSonata, String Quartet and Piano Quintet) and the Cello Concerto. The prospect of thelong miserable war ending and the joy of living in the country proved a powerfulstimulant to Elgar’s inspiration, despite the primitive facilities in his temporary home.Champs Hill, near to Fittleworth and where these recordings were made, with its views ofAmberley Wild Brooks is as much part of this ‘Elgar country’ as Brinkwells.

Worcestershire, the Malvern Hills, the River Severn – ‘that sweet borderland I call home’ –these are the images we have of Elgar country. But it is in Sussex, only sixty miles southof London, which nurtured the composer’s last great creative period, and the music of theQuintet is rooted in the county where it was largely composed. The composer’s time inSussex became one of the happiest of his life and for the time Elgar had access to thecottage he travelled there as often as he could, even leaving London for Sussex on themorning of the armistice in November 1918.

In 1912 the Elgars left Hereford and moved to a large house in Hampstead. Five yearslater, Lady Alice Elgar, recognising her husband’s need to escape from wartime London,eventually found Brinkwells in early May 1917 and over the next four years the Elgarstook a series of leases on the cottage. They stayed there for the first time between 24May and 4 June and for Elgar it was love at first sight: ‘It is divine: simple thatchedcottage and a studio with wonderful view.’ He spent more than half of the following yearthere: from May to October and from November to just after Christmas 1918. Followingthe death of Alice Elgar in April 1920, the ageing composer continued to stay atBrinkwells until he was no longer able to rent the cottage. This area of Sussex has manyimportant musical associations but none are as significant as those which are linked toBrinkwells in 1918.

Andrew NeillBrinkwells, 1933reproduced by permission of The Elgar Birthplace

The Starlight Express it was adapted as a children’s Christmas play for which Elgarcomposed the music in 1915. Blackwood was attracted to the trees in Flexham Parkand it may well have been Blackwood who suggested the idea that a group ofSpanish monks had been struck dead for committing ‘impious rites’ and were thuspreserved in wood for posterity. The violinist W H Reed remembered the ‘gnarledand twisted branches stretching out in an eerie manner as if beckoning one tocome nearer’.

The Quintet begins serioso and quietly (pp), the world of plainchant not thatdistant, before giving way to a brief march-like Allegro. It is the second subjectwhich suggests a Spanish musical idiom (the accompaniment reminiscent of aguitar). The extended development uses the resources of the players to the full andthe movement ends by recalling the opening phrases. Beneath the final bar Elgarinscribed Bedham 1918.

George Bernard Shaw instinctively understood the Adagio when he wrote: ‘A fineslow movement is a matter of course with you – nobody else has really done itsince Beethoven – at least the others have never been able to take me in.Intermezzos and romances at best, never a genuine adagio.’ The viola leads theplayers in Elgar’s memorable E flat theme spread over forty-two bars before thesecond subject takes the material through various key changes to the development.Noble and uplifting, the theme returns as if a thanksgiving for peace.

The finale’s slow, wistful introduction leads into a vigorous Allegro played by thestrings in unison. The piano announces the second subject before the developmentrecalls music from the first movement. We are not haunted for long by themysteries of strange woods as sunlight returns with the opening theme of themovement. The second subject takes the movement to its end, the music happilybreaking free of wartime and the uncertainties of peace. Elgar signed off theQuintet Brinkwells 1918, thus ensuring the immortality of another cottage in theland and county he honoured and loved.

Andrew Neill

PIANO QUINTET IN A MINOR, OP.84

Elgar’s Quintet is a record of his time in Sussex; the music embedded in theatmosphere which surrounded Brinkwells and which infuses the first movement inparticular. Nevertheless the Quintet remains a universal work with a slow movementworthy to stand with those of the symphonies and concertos. Although of its time,the Quintet transcends the war and the sound of guns in France which could beheard at Brinkwells on a southerly wind.

In 1918 it was a Quartet (Op.83) that Elgar began first, following a tonsillectomy inLondon in March and, as spring took hold, the Elgars settled back into Sussex life.Elgar’s convalescence was aided by summer weather and his love of country pursuitsfor, as he said: ‘[I] fiddled, fished and fooled.’ A piano was transported to thecottage in August and this, together with news that the German army was beingdriven eastwards on the Western Front, stimulated Elgar to composition once moreand he started his Violin Sonata (Op.82), which was virtually complete by mid-September when he began composing the Quintet. Alice Elgar detected somethingdifferent in the music: ‘wonderful, weird beginning...’. A few days later she wrote:‘The Sinister trees & their strange dance in it – Then a wail for their sin – wonderful.’

With the approach of autumn Elgar turned back to the Quartet but he was drawnagain to the Quintet before completing the Quartet just in time for Christmas. Bymid-February 1919, back in London, the Quintet was complete and it was given itsfirst (private) performance with the Quartet on 26 April before all three works wereperformed in public at the Wigmore Hall on 21 May. Elgar dedicated the Quintet tothe critic Ernest Newman to whom he wrote about the first movement: ‘It is strangemusic I think & I like it – but – it is ghostly stuff.’

Whilst living at Brinkwells the Elgars had explored the surrounding countryside,including Flexham Park and the village of Bedham. One visitor to Brinkwells wastheir friend Algernon Blackwood, the author of the novel A Prisoner in Fairyland. As

REPERTOIRE NOTES

charming setting of words which go some way to explain the importance of his art:‘Soar, voice, soar, heavenwards, and pray for me.’

Rondel (Op.16 No.3) from 1894 is a translation by Longfellow of a poem by Froissartfrom the age of chivalry. Elgar’s flowing accompaniment (written before he set thewords) works well and leads to a strong ending.

Queen Mary’s Song is a setting of Tennyson from the poet’s play Mary Tudor of 1875.It is dated 1 July 1889 and was composed in London where the Elgars settled aftertheir marriage. To a lute-like accompaniment the Queen reflects on her lost love (KingPhilip of Spain) and the loss of Calais. The song is largely in the minor key, but theQueen’s misery is prevented from overwhelming the listener by Elgar’s forward-movingpulse and the change to the major key for the final bars.

Andrew Neill

THREE MOVEMENTS FOR PIANOFORTE TRIOfrom a note by John Norris

In 2007 the composer Paul Adrian Rooke was commissioned to complete the threepiano trio movements recorded here. The March for the Grafton Family was aversion of the Empire March of 1924, and the 1882 trio movement was written byElgar for a private performance with his friend Charles Buck and Buck’s motherwhile staying at their home in Settle, Yorkshire. Elgar returned to the work in 1915and resurrected the movement’s trio as the salon piece, Rosemary.

Of the origins of the other trio movement, nothing is known. It survived as asingle-page MS in the British Library, bearing two dates: 10 February 1886 and,against a deleted stave, 21 September 1920. Michael Kennedy, in his Portrait ofElgar, notes the work as having been ‘recopied’ by Elgar in 1920, thereforesuggesting another immature work. One hearing dispelled such a notion and,whatever its gestation, the work contains all the fingerprints of a much later piece.We now presume Elgar was (re)writing it as a companion to the three completed

SEVEN SONGS

Elgar once declared that he was ‘not a song writer’ and although this is evidently nottrue, his song writing is perhaps the least regarded part of his art. All the same anumber of Elgar’s songs can stand comparison with the best of English song andmany others touch the listener through a phrase or modulation that seems, onreflection, ‘Elgarian’. Many of his songs were composed before he reached his maturityas a composer (1908–1913) and most obviously in this selection the songs Pleadingand Is She Not Passing Fair? contain that mixture of nostalgia and whimsy whichinitially attracted Elgar and inspired memorable melodies that stay in the mind.

The Shepherd’s Song (Op.16 No.1) by Barry Pain (1864–1928) was composed by Elgarin 1892 and is a pastoral setting that is at times energetic but that quickly changesmood to reflect the joy of summer. The shepherd, perhaps surprisingly, takes a coolingswim and considers an alternative life. Elgar reflects on all this as these vigoroussentiments give way to the reflective close.

In Pleading (Op.48) from 1908 by the travel writer Arthur L Salmon (1865–?), Elgarsets a poem of regret and atavism, sentiments with which he was more than familiar.Depressed after completing his first Symphony, Elgar turned to a book of poems whichthe author had sent him. This song is dedicated to the singer Lady Maud Warrender.

Like to a Damask Rose (1892) is a setting of the Jacobean poet Simon Wastell. It isan emotionally varied reflection on life’s short span and Elgar’s urgent opening isquickly overtaken by the need to reflect the changes in mood in the poetry. Despitethe bleak finality of the sentiment the song ends grandiloquently.

Is She Not Passing Fair? by Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394–1465) is a publicstatement of love which Elgar set to a memorable melody in 1886. Here he finds inmusic the sense of regret that infuses the writing of the poet, a prisoner in Englandfor twenty-four years.

Speak, Music (Op.42 No.2) from 1901 is the setting of a poem by the author of Landof Hope and Glory, Arthur C Benson (1862–1925). Elgar’s relaxed music embraces a

adding a minuet section to form an essentially complete movement for pianotrio. Buck was a competent amateur cellist, his mother played the piano andElgar, of course, played the violin. As presented here, it is a conventionallystructured Minuet and Trio with repeats. Some editorial alterations were needed,particularly with regard to rhythms; some additional bowing and articulationwas also required.

Movement IIIMarch for the Grafton Family is a version for piano trio of Elgar’s Empire March.The Grafton family concerned were Elgar’s ‘favourite’ sister, Susannah Mary(known as ‘Pollie’), her husband, Will, and their three daughters and two sons.The sketches for the movement are held at The Elgar Birthplace Museum andconsist of violin and ‘cello parts in Elgar’s hand. These two parts are written outneatly, with few corrections but a “pianoforte” part is less neat, with manycorrections and additions, almost certainly a piano reduction-sketch of theEmpire March. Some of the chords are unplayable by a pianist and there areindications of instrumentation – ‘organ and ‘Bells’. It also has ten bars morethan the violin and ‘cello parts. Reconstituting the march was, therefore, asimple matter with the two string parts, but the layout of the piano part had tobe performable and the extra bars excised. The latter was not a simple matter,however, as the intrusive bars were not consecutive but spread about the lasttwo pages or so.

The three movements are not, of course, part of one trio but I would suggestthat they can be played as such, in which case there is the slow introductionand exposition of a conventional first movement Sonata-allegro; then follows,conventionally enough, a Minuet and Trio; finally comes, not without precedent,a March. The key relationships may raise a few conventional eyebrows, but arenot outlandish: D minor, G major and B flat major.

Paul Adrian Rooke

chamber works of 1918–19 but that, while his creativity remained strong, AliceElgar’s death earlier in 1920 had removed the motivation to progress the work.Thanks to Paul Adrian Rooke, we can now glimpse what might have been and onlyregret that Elgar was not able to see the work through to completion.

Movement IElgar left the first of these three movements in a fragmentary form. The openingLento is sketchy: the first eight bars being in ink, the next six in pencil. The mainpart of the movement has no tempo indication. The first 24 bars are written outalmost fully but then gaps begin to appear and much of the transition and secondtheme has only a single line of material and almost no bars in which all threeinstruments are catered for (there are many blank bars throughout the threeinstruments). After 84 bars the sketch comes to an abrupt stop. The slowintroduction, faster main section with a first theme in D minor, transition to therelative key and a second theme in F major persuaded me that this was a sketch fora Sonata-allegro with slow introduction. I had to decide about the overall structureand determined that I would complete what was obviously Elgar’s exposition, butthat I would not finish the movement as a whole sonata form – only what wasElgar’s exposition, after which I have placed repeat marks. The first-time bar enablesthe music to return from F major to the tonic key, D minor; the second-time barconcludes in F major.

Movement IIThe manuscript (dated 1882) is a Minuet and Trio. The ‘Trio’ section is signed anddated ‘Edward Wm Elgar / Giggleswick / Settle / Yks. / Septr. 4 1882’. Elgar had firstmet Dr Charles Buck at a concert given in Worcester that year to entertain themembers of a convention of the British Medical Association. It proved to be thestart of a life-long friendship. Invited to stay at Buck’s home in Settle, Elgar tooksketches for a trio section which he had penned the previous year and expanded it,

BIOGRAPHIES

Photography John Clark,

except Ursula Gough (top right), by Martin le Huray

THE SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE

Founded in 1983, the Schubert Ensemble is firmly established as one of the world’sleading exponents of chamber music for piano and strings. Regularly giving over 50concerts a year, the Ensemble has performed in over 40 different countries. In 1998the Ensemble’s contribution to British musical life was recognised by the RoyalPhilharmonic Society when it presented the group with the Best Chamber EnsembleAward, for which it was shortlisted again in 2010. In 2009 and 2010 it performed inthe Czech Republic, Norway, Gibraltar, Spain, Holland, Canada and the USA, and alsomade its first tour of China. In the UK it has won much praise for two festivals thatit curated at King’s Place in London: Finding Fauré in 2009 and Saint-Saëns’ Paris in2010 and, most recently, for an Enescu/Dvorák series at the Wigmore Hall. TheEnsemble was also invited by Leeds City Council to programme its 2010/11International Chamber Series, for which it devised a Viennese season with the titleTransfigured Night.

Alongside its busy concert schedule, the Ensemble has established a reputation forinnovation in the field of new music, education and audience development. It hascarried out three-year performing and educational Residencies at Bristol and CardiffUniversities, the Hall for Cornwall in Truro, the Wiltshire Music Centre andBirmingham Conservatoire. It has also built up strong relationships with many of theUK’s leading composers, and has an impressive list of over 80 commissions. Its visionin combining education and new music initiatives led to the creation of thegroundbreaking national project, Chamber Music 2000. In the recording studio theEnsemble has produced around thirty critically acclaimed CDs of works by composersranging from Hummel, Mendelssohn and Brahms to Martin Butler, Judith Weir andJohn Woolrich. It has appeared on TV and radio in many countries and is familiar toBritish audiences through regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.

www.schubertensemble.com

Welser-Möst in Cleveland and at CarnegieHall. In Berlin she has sung with the BerlinPhilharmonic under Solti and Rattle and theDeutsche Staatskapelle under Philippe Jordan.

A founder member of The Songmakers’Almanac, Felicity has appeared on the majorrecital platforms of the world, including theSalzburg, Prague, Bergen, Aldeburgh,Edinburgh and Munich festivals, theMusikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna andthe Salle Gaveau, Musée d’Orsay, OpéraComique, Châtelet and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. She has a particularly closeassociation with the Wigmore Hall andreceived the Wigmore Hall Medal in February2010 for her significant contribution to thevenue.

Her many awards include honorary doctoratesat the Universities of Oxford, Loughborough,Leicester, London and Sussex and the RoyalAcademy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Shewas made a CBE in the 1990 New YearHonours and in 1996 was created a DameCommander of the British Empire. In February2003 she was awarded the title of BayerischeKammersängerin. She has also been awardedthe titles Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et desLettres and Chevalier de l’Ordre National de laLégion d’Honneur by the French Government.

www.felicitylott.de

FELICITY LOTT

Felicity Lott was born and educated in Cheltenham, read French at RoyalHolloway College (of which she is now an Honorary Fellow) and singing atthe Royal Academy of Music (of which she is a Fellow and a VisitingProfessor). Her operatic repertoire ranges from Handel to Stravinsky, butabove all she has built up her formidable international reputation as aninterpreter of the great roles of Mozart and Strauss. At the Royal OperaHouse she has sung Anne Trulove, Blanche, Ellen Orford, Eva, CountessAlmaviva and – under Mackerras, Tate, Davis and Haitink – theMarschallin. At the Glyndebourne Festival her roles have included AnneTrulove, Pamina, Donna Elvira, Oktavian, Christine (Intermezzo), CountessMadeleine (Capriccio) and the title role in Arabella. Her roles at theBavarian State Opera, Munich include Christine, Countess Almaviva,Countess Madeleine and the Marschallin. For the Vienna State Opera herroles include the Marschallin under Kleiber which she has sung both inVienna and Japan. In Paris, at the Opéra Bastille, Opéra Comique, Châteletand Palais Garnier she has sung Cleopatra, Fiordiligi, Countess Madeleine,the Marschallin and the title roles in La Belle Hélène and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. At the Metropolitan Opera, New York, she sang theMarschallin under Carlos Kleiber and Countess Almaviva under JamesLevine. She recently sang Poulenc’s heroine in staged performances of LaVoix Humaine at the Teatro de La Zarzuela, Madrid, the Maison de laCulture de Grenoble and the Opéra National de Lyon.

She has sung with the Vienna Philharmonic and Chicago Symphonyorchestras under Solti, the Munich Philharmonic under Mehta, the LondonPhilharmonic under Haitink, Welser-Möst and Masur, the Concertgebouwunder Masur, the Suisse Romande and Tonhalle orchestras under ArminJordan, the Boston Symphony under Previn, the New York Philharmonicunder Previn and Masur, the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sir AndrewDavis in London, Sydney and New York, and the Cleveland Orchestra under

GOULD PIANO TRIO

Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in the 2011–12 season, the Gould Piano Trio is knownas an ensemble with an enviable reputation for musical integrity and imagination,which has continued to evolve since their early success in winning the Charles Hennenand Melbourne international chamber-music competitions.

The Ensebmle’s constantly developing career reflects their musical energy, with regulartours to the USA since becoming ‘Rising Stars’ just before the new millennium. Festivalperformances have included the Bath Mozart Fest, Hay-on-Wye (BBC Radio 3),Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, City of London and Lofoten International ChamberMusic Festival, Norway, amongst many others. The Gould Piano Trio additionally

JOSEPH MIDDLETON

Described by The Times as ‘the cream of the new generation’, Joseph Middleton enjoys abusy and varied career as a chamber musician and accompanist.

A graduate of the University of Birmingham and the Royal Academy of Music, hiscompetitive successes include the Accompaniment Prizes at the Wigmore HallInternational Song, Kathleen Ferrier, Royal Over-Seas League and Richard Taubercompetitions. He was recently awarded the Lied-Pianist Prize at the InternationalerSchubert-Wettbewerb LiedDuo in Germany.

Joseph has given recitals with internationally establishedsingers of the opera world, including Sir Thomas Allen, DameFelicity Lott, Ann Murray, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft,Mark Padmore, Christopher Maltman, Wolfgang Holzmair,Katarina Karnéus, Andrew Kennedy, Toby Spence, GeraldineMcGreevy, Janice Watson and Jonathan Lemalu. He regularlycollaborates with rising stars from the younger generationincluding Clara Mouriz, Sophie Bevan, Anna Grevelius, JenniferJohnston, Allan Clayton, Ronan Collett, Anna Leese, RobertMurray, Marcus Farnsworth and Catherine Hopper. Work withinstrumentalists includes concerts with Alexander Baillie, EmmaJohnson and Nicholas Daniel.

In recent seasons he has appeared at major music centres including the Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Brighton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder, Ravinia, ThreeChoirs and Toronto festivals. He gives frequent recitals at such venues as London’sWigmore Hall, Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, St. John’s, SmithSquare, the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Bristol’s ColstonHall and The Sage Gateshead, as well as venues throughout Europe, the USA andCanada. Joseph has made numerous live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and a CD ofSpanish Songs with Clara Mouriz was released on the Sonimage label in 2010. He hasdevised programmes for the Wigmore Hall, BBC Radio 3 and King’s Place.

www.josephmiddleton.com

Following a national fund-raising campaign, the Elgar Birthplace – pictured – waspurchased in 1935 by the ‘County of the City of Worcester’ and the following yearthe Elgar Birthplace Trust was formed to administer what became a Museum.

The Elgar Foundation was established in 1972 with wider responsibilities andtook over administration of the Elgar Birthplace which is located at Broadheath,a village three miles from the city of Worcester. In 2000 a new centre, builtadjacent to the Birthplace cottage, was opened by the President of the ElgarFoundation, Dame Janet Baker. The purpose of the new centre is to display theMuseum’s extensive collection for which the Foundation also has responsibility. Itfeatures a unique and nationally important collection of manuscripts, letters,press cuttings, concert programmes, diaries, recordings, books, personalpossessions and memorabilia associated with the life, work and influences of SirEdward Elgar. It is the largest and most wide-ranging collection of materialassociated with the composer and a wonderful resource for scholars andperformers. The Elgar Foundation has broader objectives too, the principal ofwhich, pursued with vigour and enthusiasm, is to preserve and promote aninterest in the life and work of Elgar.

THE ELGAR FOUNDATION – president Sir Mark Elder, CBE

Image courtesy of the Elgar Foundation

presents their own chamber music festival in Corbridge, Northumberland (withclarinettist Robert Plane); their interaction between invited artists and a very loyalaudience establishing a recipe for renewal and inspiration.

The ‘Goulds’ are the first ensemble to record the complete cycle of Brahms’ pianotrios, including his two surviving early essays in the genre and the famous clarinetand horn trios (Robert Plane and David Pyatt respectively). An endeavour close totheir hearts in recent years has been to reinstate the late British Romantics in thecatalogue with Stanford, Bax and Ireland appearing on Naxos and Cyril Scott onChandos. Their homage to Messiaen in his centenary year - Quatour pour la fin dutemps (Chandos) – was described by BBC Music Magazine as ‘the best modernaccount’ of the work. The Trio’s special affinity with the romantic composers isenhanced by the discovery of their lesser-known contemporaries such as Niels Gade(BBC Radio 3 from Glasgow) and Robert Fuchs (Editor’s Choice in Gramophone),viewing the more popular repertoire of composers such as Schumann and Dvorák in anew perspective.

As well as their performing lives, they feel passionate about passing on their craft toyounger aspiring musicians, undertaking residencies at both the Royal Welsh Collegeof Music and Drama and Royal Northern College of Music; and the trio constantlystrive to engage new audiences through outreach programmes, often working withschool children – as filmed by the BBC during the Leeds International PianoCompetition.

Regular and extensive tours to the USA have seen the Gould Piano Trio performing atthe major venues in New York, including the Lincoln Center, Frick Collection andCarnegie Hall, as well as venues across the West Coast. In Europe, highlights haveincluded the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Palais desBeaux Arts, Brussels, as well as recitals in Paris, Cologne, Athens and Vienna, whileregularly playing at London’s Wigmore Hall and King’s Place.

www.gouldpianotrio.com

The Shepherd’s Song

Down the dusty road togetherHomeward pass the hurrying sheep,Stupid with the summer weather,Too much grass and too much sleep,I, their shepherd, sing to theeThat summer is a joy to me.

Down the shore rolled waves all creamyWith the flecked surf yesternight;I swam far out in starlight dreamy,In moving waters cool and bright,I, the shepherd, sing to thee:I love the strong life of the sea.

And upon the hillside growingWhere the fat sheep dozed in shade,Bright red poppies I found blowing,Drowsy tall and loosely made,I, the shepherd, sing to theeHow fair the bright red poppies be.

To the red tiled homestead bendingWinds the road, so white and longDay and work are near their endingSleep and dreams will end my song,I, the shepherd, sing to thee;In the dreamtime answer, answer me,In the dreamtime answer, answer me.

Words by Barry Pain.

Pleading

Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland,

Home in the dusk, and speak to me again?Tell me the stories that I am forgetting,Quicken my hope, and recompense my pain?

Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland?

I have grown weary, though I wait you yet;Watching the fallen leaf, the faith grown

fainter,The mem’ry smoulder’d to a dull regret.

Shall the remembrance die in dim forgettingAll the fond light that glorified my way?

Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland,

Home in the dusk, and turn my night to day?

Words by Arthur L. Salmon.

MY OWN COUNTRYFelicity Lott & Graham Johnson

Felicity Lott brings her delicacy and richunderstanding to a collection of English song,inspired by the idyllic Sussex countryside.

This charming – and occasionally surprising –disc includes songs by Quilter, Elgar, Parry,Ireland, Bax and Holst, together with a selectionof Harold Fraser-Simpson’s songs based on versesfrom A.A. Milne’s The Hums of Pooh, and settingsby Liza Lehmann.

“a lovingly planned programme by GrahamJohnson, beautifully sung by Dame Felicity”Gramophone Magazine

PHOENIX - ENGLISH OBOE CONCERTOSEmily PailthorpeEnglish Chamber Orchestra Benjamin WallfischFeaturing three English oboe concertos, this CDopens with the world première recording ofPaul Patterson’s Phoenix Concerto; giving oboesoloist Emily Pailthorpe the character of themythical firebird itself: mercurial andmesmerising.

Recorded alongside the Vaughan-Williams oboeconcerto, the English Chamber Orchestra isconducted by Benjamin Wallfisch.

This disc additionally features another worldpremière, with a new arrangement of theHowells’ oboe sonata for solo oboe, stringorchestra and harp. Emily Pailthorpe deliversstunning solo performances throughout thissensuous and captivating CD.

ALSO AVAILABLE

www.champshillrecords.co.uk

CHRCD024

CHRCD026

Speak, Music

Speak, speak, music and bring to meFancies too fleet for me,Sweetness too sweet for me,Wake, wake, voices, and sing to me,Sing to me tenderly; bid me rest.

Rest, Rest! Ah, I am fain of it!Die, Hope! Small was my gain of it!Song, take thy parable,Whisper, whisper that all is well,Say, say that there tarriethSomething, something more true than death,Waiting to smile for me; bright and blest.

Thrill, thrill, string: echo and play for meAll, all that the poet, the priest cannot say

for me;Soar, voice, soar, heavenwards, and pray

for me,Wondering, wandering; bid me rest.

Words by Arthur C. Benson.

Rondel

Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart, this heart of mine?

Nought see I sure or fixed in thee! I do not know thee, nor what deeds are thine:Love, what wilt thou with this heart, this heart

of mine?Nought see I fixed or sure in thee,Nought see I fixed or sure in thee!

Shall I be mute, or vows with prayers combine?Ye who are blessed in loving, tell it me:Love, what wilt thou with this heart, this heart

of mine?Nought see I permanent or sure in thee,Nought see I permanent or sure in thee:

Love, Love, what wilt thou with this heart, thisheart of mine?

Words by Longfellow (from a Rondel by Froissart).

Queen Mary’s Song

Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing,Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in

loathing:Low! My lute:Speak low, speak low, my lute, but say the

world is nothing.Low! Lute, low!

Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken;

Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken;

Low, my lute!Low, o low my lute! We fade and are forsaken,

and are forsaken, We fade and are forsaken.Low; dear lute, low!

Words by Lord Tennyson.

Is She Not Passing Fair?

Is she not passing fair,She whom I love so well?On earth, in sea, or air,Where may her equal dwell?

Oh! Tell me, ye who dareTo brave her beauty’s spell,Is she not passing fair,She whom I love so well?

Whether she speak or sing,Be jocund or serene,Alike in ev’rything,Is she not beauty’s queen?

Then let the world declare,Let all who see her tell,That she is passing fair,She whom I love so well!

Words by Charles, Duke of Orléans.

Like to the Damask Rose

Like to the damask rose you see,Or like a blossom on a tree,Or like a dainty flow’r of May,Or like the morning of the day,Or like the sun, or like the shade,Or like the gourd which Jonas had,E’en such is man whose thread is spun,Drawn out and cut, and so is done.

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,The flower fades, the morning hasteth,The sun sets, the shadow flies,The gourd consumes the manHe dies!

Like to the grass that’s newly sprung,Or like a tale that’s new begun,Or like a bird that’s here today,Or like the pearled dew of May,Or like an hour, or like a span,Or like the singing of a swan,E’en such is man who lives by breath,Is here, now there, in life and death.

The grass withers, the tale is ended,The bird is flown, the dew’s ascended,The hour is short, the span not long;The hour is short, the span not long;The swan’s near death,Man’s life is done!

Words by Simon Wastell.