Signum Classics: Hubert Parry — Songs of Farewell / Tenebrae, Nigel Short (Audio CD)

Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!

Product Details:

• UPC: 0635212026724
• Catalog Number: SIGCD267
• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Signum Classics (Signum Records)
• Ensemble: Tenebrae
• Director: Nigel Short
• Composers: Parry, Holst, Tavener, Sullivan, Richard Rodney Bennett, Howells, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, William H. Harris
• Release Year: 2011
• Genre: Classical
• Style: A cappella choral, English sacred & elegiac

Product Features

• Format: CD
• Discs: 1
• Tracks: 15
• Total timing: 75:54
• Recording: 24-bit
• Condition: New / Factory sealed

Overview

Songs of Farewell gathers English choral music written for the end of things — funerals, evening, the close of a life — and lets the elite chamber choir Tenebrae sing it with the unaccompanied clarity the repertoire demands. At its centre sits Parry's own six-motet cycle Songs of Farewell, among the finest unaccompanied English choral works of the early 20th century.

Director Nigel Short builds the programme outward from Parry into a wider meditation. Holst's "The Evening-Watch" opens, then Howells' radiant "Take him, earth, for cherishing," Tavener's hypnotic "Funeral Ikos," and closing pieces by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and William H. Harris. It plays as a single arc rather than a compilation.

Tenebrae's blend is the draw — controlled, luminous, and perfectly tuned for music this exposed. Recorded in 24-bit sound for Signum Classics in 2011, with a generous 75 minutes of programme.

Interesting Facts

• Tenebrae was founded in 2001 by Nigel Short, a former member of The King's Singers, and takes its name from the candlelit Holy Week services.
• Parry's "Songs of Farewell" were among his last completed works, written between 1916 and 1918 as the First World War cast its shadow.
• Howells' "Take him, earth, for cherishing" was composed in 1964 for a memorial service for President John F. Kennedy.
• Vaughan Williams' "The Turtle Dove" is a folk-song arrangement, set here for solo voice and humming choir.
• The disc draws on three generations of English composers, from Sullivan and Parry through to Tavener and Richard Rodney Bennett.

Track Listing

1. Holst — The Evening-Watch, Op. 43 No. 1 (soloists: Matthew Long, Clare Wilkinson) — 4:59
2. Richard Rodney Bennett — A Good-Night — 2:58
3. Herbert Howells — Take him, earth, for cherishing — 9:02
4. John Tavener — Funeral Ikos — 7:41 Parry — Songs of Farewell:
5. My soul, there is a country — 3:52
6. I know my soul hath power to know all things — 2:04
7. Never weather-beaten sail — 3:22
8. There is an old belief — 4:52
9. At the round earth's imagined corners — 7:27
10. Lord, let me know mine end — 10:58
11. Edward Elgar — They are at rest — 3:39
12. Vaughan Williams — The Turtle Dove (soloist: Gabriel Crouch) — 3:18
13. Sullivan, arr. Philip Lawson — The long day closes (soloists: Gabriel Crouch, William Gaunt, Matthew Long) — 3:48
14. Vaughan Williams — Rest — 3:51
15. William H. Harris — Bring us, O Lord God — 4:01

Publishers

℗ & © 2011 Signum Records. Signum Records Ltd, Perivale, Middlesex, United Kingdom.

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