It has been a busy week for stay CD launches. On Wednesday harpists Oliver Wass and Lise Vandermissen had a joint launch at St Pancras Clocktower for Wass’s Musica per arpa on Tactus and Vandermissen’s Our Roots on Etcetera. Then on Friday, tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale launched their disc of songs by Gerald Finzi, The Dance Continued on Signum Classics, at St Clement Danes.
Wass and Vandermissen’s launch occasion was a delight as a result of it concerned two harps, each performed on a contemporary harp however Vandermissen additionally performed some repertoire on a 1911 Erard. For her newest disc, Our Roots, Vandermissen has turned to her personal roots as she is Belgian, with a disc of music by Belgian composers Jeanne Adrienne Kufferath (1874-1919), Felix Godefroid (1818-1872), Jacqueline Fontyn (born 1930) and Vandermissen’s personal items. The types proved apparently diverse with Kufferath’s extra salon-like items alongside Godefroid (referred to as the Paganini of the harp!), Fontyn’s piece (which was had direct from the composer) which was a listing of superior harp strategies and Vandermissen’s personal extra private works.
In contrast, Wass’s two-disc set on Tactus, Musica per arpa, contrasted three giant items by Misha Mullov-Abbado with primarily Italian Baroque works by Travaci, Palestrina, Cacini, and Barbara Strozzi, together with works by Tarrega and Elsa Respighi, plus a concerto by Luigi Molinom with Wass being joined by his Pelleas Ensemble (Oliver Wass – harp, Henry Roberts – flute, Luba Tunnicliffe – viola), and Ensemble APM (Luca Vacchetti – conductor).
Mullov-Abbado has written three items for Wass through the years and all three are heard on the disc. On the launch we heard Purple Ruth for solo harp together with a piece for the Pelleas Ensemble, Three Meditation Songs which was written for the ensemble some ten years in the past. The Pelleas Ensemble additionally performed two Barbara Strozzi vocal works in imaginative and free preparations by the ensemble’s viola participant, Luba Tunnicliffe. As a finale, Wass and Vandermissen gave us a taster of a future mission with a piece by Oliver Davis for 2 harps which was written for them.
Earlier this month I chatted to tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale about their newest disc, Gerald Finzi: The Dance Continued [see my interview] on Signum Classics reflecting the truth that this 12 months is a double Finzi anniversary.
So it was a delight to listen to a number of the music from the disc carried out stay at St Clement Danes (in an occasion supported by Finzi Pals). The church is now the central church of the Royal Air Pressure, a quite apt venue as Gerald Finzi’s pal, the composer Howard Ferguson served within the RAF in the course of the battle.
After Finzi’s loss of life (in 1956) Ferguson and Finzi’s spouse Pleasure created the posthumous music cycles Until Earth outwears Op. 19a and Oh truthful to see Op. 13b each of which Pritchard and Tindale carried out on the launch. The disc additionally contains Finzi’s 1933 cycle A Younger Man’s Exhortation, each this and Until Earth outwears are settings of Thomas Hardy.
In contrast Oh truthful to see options settings of hardy, Ivor Gurney, Christina Rossetti, Edward Shanks, Robert Bridges and Finzi’s shut pal Edmund Blunden. The cycle ends with Finzi’s final music, a setting of Robert Bridge’s Since we cherished. However alongside this are two very early songs, and extra early songs characteristic on the disc, all unpublished. All 5 of those have been included within the recital. As Ian Tindale defined, the songs are unpublished for a purpose however enough time has elapsed that we are able to discover how these songs mirror each Finzi earlier than his type totally developed together with the moments that stay up for his mature type.
