Richard Hickox Haydn London Vol. 1

William Alwyn valued his Lyra Angelica concerto for harp above all his other music, and it is indeed very beautiful. It was premiered at the first night of the 1954 Proms and, not surprisingly, made an immediate impression. The work is inspired by stanzas written in the seventeenth century by the English metaphysical poet, Giles Fletcher, and Alwyn prefaces each of the movements with a line from his poem, ''Christ's Victorie and Triumph''. The music opens mistily and then a wondrous tune appears, like a carol, and it almost fits the words of the first quotation, ''I looke for angels' songs, and hear Him crie''.

Vaughan Williams composed his ‘ballad-opera’ Hugh the Drover, from which A Cotswold Romance is adapted, between 1910 and 1914. In his own words, he had an idea for an opera written ‘to real English words, with a certain amount of real English music’. The finished product, set in the Cotswold Village of Northleach during the Napoleonic wars, certainly does contain a host of identifiable English elements: the bringing-in of May, the bustling fair, and the prize-fight, for instance. Accommodating his publishers’ request for a version of the music which was more appropriate for concert performance, Vaughan Williams came up with the cantata A Cotswold Romance for tenor and soprano soloists with mixed-voice chorus and orchestra. The writing has the open, fresh, and vital quality that coloured many of Vaughan Williams’s works composed before the First World War.

Benjamin Britten - War Requiem / Sinfonia da Requiem / Ballad of Heroes
Heather Harper, Philip Langridge, Martyn Hill, John Shirley-Quirk; London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Hickox
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 567 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Chandos # CHSA 5007(2) | Country/Year: UK 1991
Genre: Classical | Style: Contemporary, Sacred, Vocal, Oratorio

"…Hickox's set has achieved the status of a classic for Britten recordings." ~sa-cd.net

It would be hard to devise a septet of soloists more stylish than those on the reissued EMI set, with Arleen Auger brilliant and warm-toned…Della Jones stands out in the breeches role of Ruggiero and Eiddwen Harrhy as Morgana is no less brilliant…Hickox underlines the contrasts of mood and speed, conveying the full range of emotion.

The Penguin Guide

In 1990, Richard Hickox recorded Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Hodie: A Christmas Cantata for EMI, two holiday choral favorites that complement each other well, despite having been created more than four decades apart. The subdued, folk-inspired quality of much of Vaughan Williams' music remained more or less constant through the years in his choral writing, so even though he adopted a more sophisticated and sometimes astringent style in later years, including irregular rhythms and spiky dissonances that never would have passed in the music of his youth, there is a common thread in his choices of modes and harmonies that unites both cantatas.

The playing and singing of Hickox’s own orchestra and chorus are always mindful of stylistic matters, crisp and airy in the sensuous dance music, urgent and theatrical (in the best sense) in passionate sections of the score, which Hickox holds together in exemplary manner (Gramophone Magazine). Hickox conducts with a fine sense of theatre, as well as an aptly Gluckian restraint…Palmer is remarkable at her best, and her duet with Rolfe Johnson ('Armide, vous m'allez quitter') is memorably done (International Record Review).

It was during the summer of 1911 that George Butterworth, whose enchanting 1913 idyll, The Banks of Green Willow, comprises the achingly poignant curtainraiser here, first suggested to Vaughan Williams that he should write a purely orchestral symphony. VW dug out some sketches h'd made for a symphonic poem about London, while at the same time deriving fruitful inspiration from HG Wells's 1908 novel, Tono-Bungay. Geoffrey Toye gave the successful Queen's Hall premiere in March 1914, and VW subsequently dedicated the score to Butterworth's memory.