"spirit of England" "william Boughton"

There are basically two ways in which conductors may approach the Enigma Variations. Either they can take the music at its face value, treating the set of variations as a symphonically developed whole; or they can treat the work as a series of miniature character sketches of Elgar’s “friends pictured within”, highlighting the personalities of the miscellaneous collection of individuals involved. William Boughton in this reading opts for the second option, and the result bubbles with life.

With so many fine-to-great Messiah’s already available, who stands to benefit from this lackluster, hardly serviceable offering? William Boughton’s conducting is pedestrian at best–the performance lumbers along politely, ignoring every one of Handel’s many opportunities to soar. This is especially excruciating in the choruses: rarely have “And he shall purify”, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates”, and “Let all the angels of God worship him” not to mention “Hallelujah” advanced with such leaden, dispassionate propriety.

Distinguished British music interpreter Sir Andrew Davis joins forces with the BBCSO once again, this time with acclaimed soloists Dame Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples, in this thoughtful presentation of the last two substantial choral works of Sir Edward Elgar.

Soprano Teresa Cahill leads an excellent quartet of soloists in this recording of the Coronation Ode, and Sir Alexander Gibson draws pleasingly bold and brassy playing from the Scottish National Orchestra. The final movement, with its famous setting of Land of Hope and Glory, is especially satisfying here.

Distinguished British music interpreter Sir Andrew Davis joins forces with the BBCSO once again, this time with acclaimed soloists Dame Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples, in this thoughtful presentation of the last two substantial choral works of Sir Edward Elgar. The matury of Elgar as an orchestrator is obvious in both works on this album, notably, in 'The Music Makers' (1912), during passages in which he quotes from 'Sea Pictures' and the Violin Concerto, and in representing the sound of aircraft in 'The Spirit of England' (1917). Elgar uses self-quotation to reflect: 'The Music Makers' is a canvas of self-reflection, written quickly following a period of illness.

Although released in 1971, the debut self-titled album by Spirit of John Morgan was actually recorded two years earlier, before the spirit of the '60s dissipated into the excesses of the '70s. But even back in 1969, the British quartet were already fish out of water, gasping for R&B in a Technicolor age of psychedelia. So they created their own, an entire album's worth of strong, shadowed, R&B numbers underlit by magnificent musicianship and powerful rhythms. The set opener, a menacing cover of Graham Bond's "I Want You," is a case in point, stalker-like in its intensity, with John Morgan's organ conjuring up a phantom of the opera from which there is no escape.

The chamber music on this recording was likely composed during the time Jenkins was living in the homes of the Dereham and L’Estrange families. Where Lawes 'music is often edgy and bizarre in character, Jenkins' compositions from this period are clearly intended to counterbalance the uncertain and risky circumstances that prevailed during the turbulent years of the Civil War. It's not for nothing that Andrew Ashbee, the great English Jenkins connoisseur, titled his book “The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins”.