Vaughan Williams

This is the fourth and final volume in a series of albums recording all 81 of the folk songs in English that Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged for voice and piano or violin. 57 songs have not previously been recorded in these arrangements. This album has 19 tracks including 13 world premières.All but four of the songs were collected by Maud Karpeles in Newfoundland in 1929 and 1930. When she got back, she and Vaughan Williams spent some hours going through everything that she had found, selecting the 15 songs presented here - with an emphasis, it seems, on the sadder songs. As a result, many people will find this the most enjoyable album of the set. Maud Karpeles said that her life would have been worthwhile if collecting She’s Like the Swallow had been all that she had done.

From established favourites by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir John Tavener, to recent works—including two premiere recordings—by Sir James MacMillan, this is an outstanding programme of choral works with strong musical and historical connections to Westminster Abbey and its celebrated choir.

Despite her youth, Ellen Nisbeth has received acclaim both in her native Sweden and abroad and is one of the Rising Stars selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) for the 2017/2018 season. A former student of London's Royal College of Music, she hails from a family of Scottish origin and feels a particular affinity for the landscapes of Scotland, and for the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. For her first recital disc Ellen Nisbeth has devised an all-British programme which includes her own transcriptions of selected songs from Songs of Travel – Ralph Vaughan Williams's settings of poems by Stevenson. The songs intersperse the remainder of the programme, and one of them – Let Beauty Awake – has also lent its title to the entire disc. Together with the eminent pianist and chamber musician Bengt Forsberg, Nisbeth goes on to perform the impassioned Viola Sonata composed in 1919 by Rebecca Clarke – a well-known piece among viola-players, but deserving of a wider audience.

Andrew Manze has established himself as one of the leading interpreters of Vaughan Williams Symphonies. His 2012 BBC Proms performances drew critical acclaim, and were highlights of that season's Proms. ONYX Classics will release one volume a year, completing the cycle in the spring of 2019 with Symphonies 7 and 9. It was Vaughan Williams's friend and fellow composer George Butterworth who in 1912 suggested he write a purely orchestral symphony.