Frederick Delius; John Ireland - Evening Songs (Julian Lloyd Webber)

Information

Composer: Frederick Delius; John Ireland

1. Delius - Sunset
2. Ireland - Spring Sorrow
3. Delius - Birds in the High Hall Garden
4. Ireland - Evening Song
5. Delius - In the Seraglio Garden
6. Delius - Love's Philosophy
7. Ireland - Sea Fever
8. Delius - Over the Mountains High
9. Ireland - The Holy Boy
10. Delius - Serenade from Hassan
11. Delius - Through Long, Long Years
12. Ireland - Baby
13. Ireland - The Three Ravens
14. Delius - Little Birdie
15. Ireland - Hope
16. Ireland - Ladslove
17. Delius - Slumber Song
18. Ireland - Summer Schemes
19. Delius - With Your Blue Eyes
20. Ireland - Her Song
21. Ireland - In Summer Woods

Julian Lloyd Webber, cello
Jiaxin Cheng, cello (4, 21)
John Lenehan, piano

Date: 2012
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572902

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Review

Lloyd Webber and wife in English ‘songs without words’

In this interesting experiment of ‘songs without words’ by Delius and Ireland, Julian Lloyd Webber brings an especially sensitive ‘voice’ to the Barjansky-Stradivarius cello on which Alexandre Barjansky gave the premiere of Delius’s Cello Concerto in Vienna in January 1921, not simply by creating that traditional ‘singing’ tone we expect from the instrument but also in the subtle changes of register and tone he lends to his own arrangements (all bar three), with the legerdemain of John Lenehan’s delicate accompaniments. Hearing the songs of both composers without the texts, and played with such attention to contour and gradation, reminds us just how masterly and diverse both composers were in their art of the solo song, and indeed how far each composer developed his own individual concept of the genre.

In the case of Delius, the early, more Grieg-inspired ‘Sunset’, ‘Slumber Song’ and ‘Birds in the High Hall Garden’ (a first recording), and the pianistically athletic ‘Love’s Philosophy’, contrast markedly with the languorous ‘In the Seraglio Garden’ and yearning ‘Through long, long years’ from the Seven Danish Songs of 1896-97, with their sense of extended, symphonic melody and pointillistic harmonies. Among the choice of Ireland’s songs there are the old favourites ‘Sea Fever’ and ‘The Holy Boy’ (in Ireland’s own arrangement), but they are played here with an insight into that nostalgic melancholy that only Ireland knew how to articulate. The sweep of ‘Ladslove’ and the introspection of ‘Her Song’ are also deeply affecting in this idiom, as are the two duets with Jiaxin Cheng of Ireland’s two part-songs, ‘Evening Song’ and ‘In Summer Woods’. As the title of the disc suggests, this is an ideal collection to while away the summer evenings.

-- Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/15/delius-ireland-julian-lloyd-webber-review
http://www.thestrad.com/review/evening-songs-deliusireland-songs-arr-cello-piano/
http://www.allmusic.com/album/evening-songs-mw0002290819
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.572902&languageid=EN
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delius-Ireland-Evening-Songs-8-572902/dp/B006O51D7E
https://www.amazon.com/Evening-Songs-Delius-Ireland-arranged/dp/B006O51D7E

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Frederick Delius (29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934) was an English composer who forged a unique version of the Impressionist musical language of the early twentieth century. The lyricism in Delius's early compositions reflected the music he had heard in America and the influences of European composers such as Edvard Grieg and Richard Wagner. As his skills matured, he developed a style uniquely his own, characterised by his individual orchestration and his uses of chromatic harmony. After WWII, Delius' fame began to spread, due in large part to the efforts of Thomas Beecham, who championed Delius' music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Delius

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John Ireland (13 August 1879 – 12 June 1962) was an English composer and teacher of classical music. He studied piano with Frederic Cliffe and composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. He was strongly influenced by Debussy and Ravel as well as by the earlier works of Stravinsky and Bartók. From these influences, he developed his own brand of "English Impressionism", related more closely to French and Russian models than to the folk-song style then prevailing in English music.  Ireland favoured small forms and wrote neither symphonies nor operas, although his Piano Concerto is considered among his best works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ireland_(composer)

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Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British cellist, conductor and the principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire. Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber made his professional debut in 1972. Lloyd Webber premiered the recordings of more than 50 works, inspiring new compositions for cello from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold, Joaquín Rodrigo, James MacMillan, and Philip Glass. On 28 April 2014, he announced his retirement from public performance as a cellist because of a herniated disc in his neck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lloyd_Webber
http://www.julianlloydwebber.com/

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