Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Somervell: Maud & A Shropshire Lad (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Somervell: Maud & A Shropshire Lad (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:02:24 minutes | 927 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings

SOMM Recordings announces an important new recording of two classic English song cycles by Sir Arthur Somervell – Maud and A Shropshire Lad – from the acclaimed partnership of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan.

Hailed as “the English Schumann” for his mastery of song setting, song cycles in particular, Somervell’s music is marked by a distinctive blend of lyricism and harmony that makes itself indelibly felt in these two seminal works of the English song repertoire.

His first cycle, Maud, setting 13 poems from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s dark monodrama, was first performed in 1899 at the height of a fashion for recitals of songs sung in English. An intense, impassioned portrayal of infatuation, it is marked by remarkably eloquent and revealing relationships between voice and text, and voice and piano.

Composed in 1904, the 10 poems from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad portray a young man wistfully contemplating nature, life and love at the age of 20 before following him through a life full of incident, the horror of the First World War and growing self-awareness. It prompted from Somervell texturally rich and varied music shot through with an aching lyricism all the more powerful and potent for its folk song-like simplicity and directness.

Completing the recital are the enchanting, ever-popular lullaby Shepherd’s Cradle Song and wistful tale of childhood sweethearts with texts by Edgar Allan Poe, A Kingdom by the Sea. British music authority Jeremy Dibble provides informative booklet notes and Roderick Williams a revealing take on Somervell’s music from a singer’s perspective.

Roderick Williams and Susie Allan’s most recent SOMM releases include Celebrating English Song (SOMMCD 0177), described by MusicWeb International as “an exemplary recital of English song”, and BBC Music Magazine’s “strongly recommended” Severn & Somme (SOMMCD 057) focusing on Ivor Gurney and his peers.

Tracklist:
1. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 1, I Hate the Dreadful Hollow (01:44)
2. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 2, A Voice by the Cedar Tree (03:59)
3. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 3, She Came to the Village Church (01:24)
4. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 4, O Let the Solid Ground (01:08)
5. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 5, Birds in the High Hall Garden (02:40)
6. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 6, Maud Has a Garden (01:43)
7. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 7, Go Not, Happy Day (01:35)
8. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 8, I Have Led Her Home (02:35)
9. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 9, Come Into the Garden, Maud (03:28)
10. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 10, The Fault Was Mine (03:40)
11. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 11, Dead, Long Dead (04:08)
12. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 12, O That ‘Twere Possible (01:45)
13. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Maud: No. 13, My Life Has Crept so Long (05:12)
14. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Kingdom by the Sea (03:36)
15. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 1, Loveliest of Trees (01:52)
16. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 2, When I Was One-and-Twenty (01:09)
17. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 3, There Pass the Careless People (01:25)
18. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 4, In Summer-Time on Bredon (03:11)
19. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 5, The Street Sounds to a Soldier’s Tread (02:00)
20. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 6, On the Idle Hill of Summer (02:23)
21. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 7, White in the Moon the Long Road Lies (02:55)
22. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 8, Think No More, Lad (01:43)
23. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 9, Into My Heart an Air That Kills (01:37)
24. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – A Shropshire Lad: No. 10, The Lads in Their Hundreds, to Ludlow Come In for the Fair (02:45)
25. Roderick Williams & Susie Allan – Shepherd’s Cradle Song (02:35)

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