Ralph Vaughan Williams News
English composer (1872–1958)
2
- organ
- classical music, opera, symphony
- United Kingdom
- conductor, classical composer, choreographer, organist, pedagogue, musicologist, film score composer
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2024-03-19
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2024-03-07 07:39:00
Danza Gaya: Simon Callaghan & Hiroaki Takenouchi play with wonderful elan & relish, clearly having a great deal of fun
Danza gaya: music for two pianos - Madeleine Dring, Dorothy Howell, Pamela Harrison; Simon Callaghan, Hiroaki Takenouchi; LYRITAThree 20th-century English women composers, thirteen pieces all virtually unknown; Simon Callaghan & Hiroaki Takenouchi take us on an engagingly enjoyable explorationNone of the composers on pianists Simon Callaghan and Hiroaki Takenouchi's new disc are well enough known. Danza gaya on the Lyrita label features delightful music for two pianos by three women from 20th century English music, Madeleine Dring, Dorothy Howell and Pamela Harrison.We open with a group of pieces by Dring. Something of a child prodigy, Dring's time at the Royal College of Music would include lessons with Howells and Vaughan Williams, but her interests were wider and much of her working life was in theatre and cabaret. There is a lightness to a lot of her music that belies its fine craftsmanship and has, I think, rather mitigated against its appreciation. Callaghan […]
2024-03-02 09:03:00
Shamus O'Brien: withdrawn by the composer for political reasons, Stanford's most popular opera languished in the 20th century but all that seems set to change
[…] ardent Unionist, worried that the opera might foment Irish nationalism and anti-English sentiment; the ban effectively remained in place until his death in March 1924.King Baggot and Vivian Prescott in the 1912 silent film Shamus O'BrienBut after that, the opera returned to the stage and was broadcast by the BBC in the 1930s. Since then the work has rather languished, though it was performed in Dublin in 1968 [see YouTube]. .In 1952 (Stanford's centenary year), Ralph Vaughan Williams lamented that on Stanford's birthday instead of celebrating him with his masterpiece (RVW's words), Shamus O'Brien, Covent Garden was performing Bellini's Norma. Stanford's post-War reputation has rested heavily on his choral music and only gradually have his works in other genres been rediscovered and returned to their place in the repertoire. Stanford wrote nine operas and these still are not well known; currently only The Travelling Companion is available in a complete on disc […]
2024-02-26 14:02:00
A Vast Obscurity: SongEasel bringings song celebrations to South East London including Gabriel Fauré's centenary
[…] concert celebrating Shakespeare with music by from the Baroque to the present day including Arne, McDowall, Samuel, Ruiz, and Finzi's Let us garlands bring. Finally, Mark Padmore and Jocelyn Freeman close the festival with The Wanderer and the Scholar on 21 June at St Stephen's Church, Dulwich by returning to two figures associated with Lord Byron, his Dulwich classmates, the celebrated pedestrian Captain Robert Barclay and Major-General John Gaspard Le Marchant, with music by Beethoven, Schubert, C. Schumann, Vaughan Williams, and Macmillan. Audiences can revel in the summer solstice with a day trip to Dulwich, enjoying a guided, historical walk around Dulwich Wood before settling in for this evening of exquisite song.There are less formal events too. A special Fauré Listening Club event on 21 April, curated and introduced by Dr. Emily Kilpatrick, will celebrate some of the composer’s best-loved works in an informal setting, free and welcome to all. There are also […]
2024-02-16 07:46:00
Olawale Olayinka: Songs My Mother Taught Me
Olawale Olayinka is a young Nigerian classically trained violinist, currently based in London. If you have seen Brixton Chamber Orchestra or Chineke! then you may well have seen him. His performances with Chineke! include appearances last Summer performing Beethoven, Holst, Vaughan Williams' and Coleridge-Taylor, conducted by Kellen Gray, as well as with the orchestra at the 2023 Brit Awards at the O2 performing with Stormzy.Olayinka has just released a self-produced EP entitled Songs My Mother Taught Me, six tracks in which he plays traditional songs in modern versions with a mix of his solo violin and electronics. We begin with Oluronbi, just violin melody over ambient electronics, intriguing and engaging. The irregular phrase lengths in the music make it distinctive, whilst Olayinka's decision to not dress up the material pays dividends. The same approach applies to Labe igi orombo, with rather touching results and to the haunting Iwe Kiko. There is […]
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