Bbc Africa 2013

The double CD features three original recordings from El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble plus remixes from world-renowned producers Charles Webster, Osunlade, Henrik Schwarz, IG Culture (Bugz in the Attic) and more…

The Howells work is pastoral-ecstatic to the point of voluptuous. The green of fields, the blue of sky - each has an emotional intensity which defines this particular idle hill of youthful summer. This is after all the work of a 25 year old and written during the Great War. It dates from the year after the superb Piano Quartet and from the same year as the Elegy for viola, string quartet and string orchestra - the latter written in memory of Francis Purcell Warren killed in the war. That elegiac vein dominates in the hushed magic of the second half of this brief work. The Cooke, on the other hand, might almost …..

Rob Barnett @ musicweb-international.com