Silence & Music
This moving sequence explores that vast 20th century secular English choral repertoire which goes under the generic title ‘part-songs’. Buried amongst vast quantities of slightly twee pastoralism – the much-derided ‘cow-pat’ school – are to be found many settings of glorious poetry, forming a corpus of sublime madrigals at least as fine as their famous renaissance forebears. At the heart of these is the complex relationship between man and nature, the bitter-sweetness of a radiant and beautiful dawn creating the same unbearable sadness of a ravishing song, both with intimations of sublimity and mortality.
“★★★★★ Sometimes the best discoveries in music aren’t pieces that you’ve never heard before, but those you have, made new by remarkable interpretations…At the recital’s heart is a breath-catching performance of James MacMillan’s Burns setting The Gallant Weaver…This is a beautifully constructed programme, sung with consummate assurance and self-effacing artistry.”BBC Music Magazine, Choral & Song Choice
“With such highly performed music there’s much to be said for performances that keep things clean, understated. The musical care and the easy, unforced shaping of lines from the Gabrielis is all the ornament works like Elgar’s There is sweet music and Howells’s The summer is coming need…a disc that takes the part-song into the 21st century not only in repertoire but also in style.”Gramophone Magazine
“The singing is consistently excellent throughout... This is a perceptively assembled programme of marvellous English part songs.”Music Web International
“★★★★ The Gabrieli’s latest themed CD, beautifully produced in all respects, celebrates the concision and intensity of 20th-century British part songs...These miniatures are rich, each in need of proper savouring.”The Observer