Presto Editor's Choice
November 2022

Gramophone Magazine
January 2023

Roderick Williams (baritone), Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder

Ireland: Great Things
Ireland: Sea Fever
Boyle, I: The Joy of Earth
Browne, W D: To Gratiana dancing and singing
Butterworth, G: A Shropshire Lad - six songs
Gipps: The Pulley
Vaughan Williams: The House of Life
Dring: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Burton, J: When I set out for Lyonesse
Clarke, Rebecca: The Seal Man
Farrar, E: Silent noon

This album represents the culmination of what leading British baritone Roderick Williams described as ‘a dream come true’. It features premiere recordings of his orchestrations of songs by Vaughan Williams and other composers associated with him and is released to commemorate those who perished in WWI.

Featuring orchestrations by Williams of his favourite songs from the 20th-century English repertoire this album contains works by Vaughan Williams and composers associated with him. It includes specially commissioned new arrangements of songs by women composers Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Madeleine Dring and Rebecca Clarke.

The album features the work of composers who were killed in the First World War, George Butterworth, William Denis Browne and Ernest Farrar and is released to coincide with Remembrance Day.

These songs portray the composers’ evocative responses to the poetry they set, and Williams’s orchestrations further convey the songs meaning through highly effective use of orchestral instruments and textures.

Roderick Williams OBE is one of Britain’s most sought-after baritones and is constantly in demand on the concert platform and in recital, encompassing a repertoire from the baroque to world premieres. In 2016 he won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award. He is also a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. He was awarded an OBE for services to music in June 2017.

This release follows hugely successful previous Vaughan Williams volumes including most recently (June 2022) Sinfonia Antartica (no.7) and no.9 (CDHLD7558).

“Some years ago, I wrote that ‘few orchestras today play Vaughan Williams as well as the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder’, a belief I still hold. This pair of symphonies on the new album ranks as some of Elder’s greatest work with Hallé…” – Michael Cookson Music Web International

"This is an absolute treat, delivering everything it promises on paper and more...there's no sense of gilding the lily in Williams's evocative orchestrations, which exude affection and intimate acquaintance with all the repertoire here, but spring many delightful surprises along the way (the grandeur of William Browne's lovely 'To Gratiana, singing and dancing' being one example). If you can listen to his delicate, haunting arrangement of 'The Lads in their Hundreds' without choking up, you're made of sterner stuff than I am…" - Katherine Cooper, Presto Music, November 2022.