Various Artists - Premieres and Encores - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

David Moss - My Favorite Things [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/29/1994

Founded in 1982 in the former county town of Radnorshire in Wales, the Presteigne Festival has become a significant part of the Welsh cultural calendar and is internationally renowned for it's commissioning of new work, support of living composers and with a long tradition for the encouragement of young artists. The festival's orchestra, conducted by Artistic Director George Vass, explores a selection of the many new works premiered by the festival in this volume of recent British music for string orchestra, including a set of variations on the folk song 'Lovely Joan' - with a movement contributed by one of eight composers, concertos by Martin Butler and Joe Duddell and music by the veteran composer Hugh Wood.

We are very pleased to announce a new recording from MPR of music for string orchestra entitled 'Palace Premieres', with the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra. The playlist consists of hitherto unrecorded music performed during Royal Investitures (where honors are bestowed by Her Majesty the Queen or by one of her close family) and includes works such as Suite In Rural England by Thomas Dunhill, Shepherd's Delight by Alec Rowley, Pastoral Scene by Frederic Curzon, Fragment for Strings by Bertram Walton O'Donnell, Nocturne by WH Speer, In Georgian Days by Roger Quilter, Rivers of Devon Suite by Ernest Markham Lee and a number of beautiful light music arrangements for strings of folk songs. We have also included as a 'bonus' a suite of Seven Pieces by Giles Farnaby, arranged by Bantock. We recorded the latter only to discover that in fact it has already been recorded but only once to our knowledge and we decided that as it is such good material we just had to include it. The Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra is very sensitively directed by Major David Hammond, a truly fine musician. The orchestra consists of the best string players in the Army who are very fine and highly trained musicians. The quality of playing is really excellent and the performances committed. The album was recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of the Guards Chapel in London and the recording engineer is the legendary Tony Faulkner. Mike Purton was producer and editor and we recommend this recording to anyone who loves British music of a certain period (see above). Lee's 'Rivers of Devon' Suite is very Elgarian, Speer's little 'Nocturne' brings to mind Wagner's 'Siegfried Idyll' and you can see from many of the titles that spirit of Rural Englandis frequently invoked. This recording has been made in collaboration with the Corps of Army Music Trust.