John Rutter - The Piano Collection (Wayne Marshall)

Information

Composer: John Rutter

1. What Sweeter Music
2. A Child's Lullaby
3. The Lord bless you and keep you
4. All things bright and beautiful
5. A flower remembered
6. The Very Best Time Of Year
7. For the beauty of the earth
8. Be thou my vision
9. A Gaelic Blessing
10. Candlelight Carol
11. A Clare Benediction
12. Angels' Carol
13. The Colours Of Christmas
14. Nativity Carol
15. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace
16. Mary's Lullaby
17. Epilogue

Wayne Marshall, piano

Date: 2020

Label: Decca

https://shop.decca.com/*/*/The-Piano-Collection/6RGY0000000

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Review

Not everyone spent lockdown baking sourdough, curtain twitching and doing Joe Wicks workouts: composer John Rutter used the time to rescore some of his best-loved works for solo piano, recorded here by Wayne Marshall from his home studio in Malta.

Rutter’s enormous choral output includes many large-scale works (such as Requiem, Mass of the Children and Visions). Sensibly, he has chosen less densely textured music for these eight arrangements; A Clare Benediction (originally for SAB) is particularly effective, while Be Thou My Vision (SATB and harp or piano) sits neatly under ten fingers.

There are some casualties, though. All Things Bright and Beautiful sounds too much like a Disney song. It’s partly because these versions are intentionally fairly simple, created for intermediate musicians who are unable to participate in their usual ensembles – where they might enjoy Rutter’s originals – to play and/or listen to at home. Companion sheet music is available via Oxford University Press. These aren’t pieces that you’d necessarily want to hear as part of a professional recital, but as an educational tool they work extremely well. Purist Rutterians will prefer the simultaneous reissue of Stanford and Howells Remembered, a newly remastered and extended two-CD set of Cambridge Singers’ 1992 recording on Collegium Records, also featuring Marshall – this time on the organ.) The Piano Collection is a thoughtful and timely package, though, delivered with impressive agility from all involved.

-- Claire Jackson, BBC Music Magazine

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John Rutter (born 24 September 1945 in London) is a British composer, conductor, arranger and record producer, mainly of choral music. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), particularly under his own label Collegium Records. Rutter's music is eclectic, showing the influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early 20th century as well as of light music and American classic songwriting. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rutter

http://www.johnrutter.com/

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Wayne Marshall (born 13 January 1961) is an English pianist, organist, and conductor. He is Chief Conductor of WDR Funkhausorchester in Cologne, Germany, and Organist and Associate Artist of the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. He became Principal Guest Conductor of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi in 2007, and is a celebrated interpreter of George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and other 20th-century American composers. Marshall has recorded extensively for numerous major labels and received an Echo Music Prize (formerly Deutscher Schallplattenpreis) for his Gershwin Songbook CD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Marshall_(classical_musician)
http://waynemarshall.com/

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