Dormant Beauty

Many Romantic composers owe their fame to one of their symphonic poems. Alongside acknowledged French masterpieces in the genre, the fifteen tracks presented here include four previously unrecorded works and several rarities by women composers. The Orchestre National de Lyon, a great champion of French Romantic music, offers a palette of shimmering colours under the baton of Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider as it relates in music the legend of Merlin the Magician, the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty and the misadventures of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Royal Rhymes and Rounds is the King's Singers' contribution to the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne in 2012. There are ballads, part songs, madrigals, rounds, and anthems written during the reigns of (and some also in honor of) Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. The music from the times of Henry and Elizabeth I is especially strong since it was the era of a flowering of English song, which then lay relatively dormant for several centuries. The composers include such luminaries as William Cornysh, Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland, and Thomas Weelkes, as well as Henry himself, whose rousing ballad Pastime with good companie opens the album. It's in this transparent repertoire that the group sounds its absolute best. The singers' immaculate intonation, focused tone quality, and sensitive musicianship are remarkable.

Okhotsk Genso is a new track composed by Tomita, inspired by a ficticious letter written by the sister of poet/author Kenji Miyazawa to Miyazawa, who inspired his latest original work, Symphony Ihatov. Tracks 2-7 were previously on Daphnis et Chloe (although three tracks from the orginal Daphnis et Chloe are not included) and tracks 8-12, were previously on the double album, Sound Creature released in 1977, and are released onto CD for the first time. Sound Creature originally demonstrated how Tomita created his works by stripping the sound down and through sound and illustrations in the booklet how the final version came into being.