London Choral Sinfonia - Eden: The Music of Edward Picton-Turbervill - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

A focused portrait of Britten alongside a little-known but significant British contemporary, marking both the 50th anniversary of Britten's death and the centenary year of Arthur Oldham's birth. Under Michael Waldron, the London Choral Sinfonia pairs Britten with the one composer he privately mentored Arthur Oldham. The program brings together familiar works by Britten with a substantial selection of Oldham's choral music, placing the two composers in direct conversation. At the center is Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, a cycle of nocturnal poetry (Tennyson, Blake, Keats and others) framed by the horn's natural harmonics in the Prologue and Epilogue. Horn soloist Annemarie Federle and Tenor Nick Pritchard trace it's shifting atmosphere, with string accompaniment from the London Choral Sinfonia. Britten's Te Deum in C appears in the rarely heard orchestrated version for strings and harp, presented here as a world premiere recording. Oldham's music completes the program the cantata Laudes Creaturarum on the text of St Francis of Assisi (with Carolyn Sampson), the carol Remember, O thou man, and the ceremonial Sacerdos et Pontifex for chorus and organ - also recorded here for the first time.

Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths; Sir Stephen Hough combines a worldwide career as a pianist with those of composer and writer. InchMy father said that I had memorised seventy nursery rhymes by the age of two. This sounds suspiciously like parental exaggeration to me; but I do know that such singing was my first form of musical expression; especially as we had no classical music in my childhood home. Then; by the age of six; the piano took over... but song remained in the background. InchMy first twenty years were filled with composing. Then followed almost twenty years of blank paper; writing virtually nothing except concert transcriptions for me to use as encores. Until; in my early 40s; I returned to composition with a passion...Inch This celebrates Hough's compositional output in works for choir and organ performed by the London Choral Sinfonia; with organist James Orford and conductor Michael Waldron.

On this essential new , sacred and secular choral works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - many of them never recorded before - are performed by the London Choral Sinfonia directed by Michael Waldron, with James Orford at the organ. The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor has for too long been neglected despite being of exceptional quality. When Michael Waldron began to explore Coleridge-Taylor's choral music, he was struck by the sheer variety and depth of skill he found - and that this music is not more widely known. This brings together a representative selection of both sacred and secular works by this great British composer, from the simple, understated tones of Whispers of Summer, to the quasi-cantata grandeur of Now late on the Sabbath Day.