The Hallé announces the release of George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad: English Songs orchestrated and performed by Roderick Williams. Conducted by Sir Mark Elder. 

A Shropshire Lad: English Songs orchestrated and performed by Roderick Williams

John Ireland: Great Things
John Ireland: Sea Fever
Ina Boyle: The Joy of Earth
William Denis Browne: To Gratiana dancing and singing
George Butterworth: Six Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’
Ruth Gipps: The pulley
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The House of Life
Madeleine Dring: Take, O take those lips away
James Burton: When I set out for Lyonesse
Rebecca Clarke: The seal man
Ernest Farrar: Silent noon

Sir Mark Elder, conductor
Roderick Williams, Baritone
Producer Jeremy Hayes
Engineer & Editor Steve Portnoi

‘No British orchestra can match the Hallé. I have heard nothing to match the unanimity and sheer collective finesse of the Hallé under Elder.’
The Spectator, December 2021

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 20^th-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.

Release follows hugely successful previous Vaughan Williams volumes including most recently (June 2022) Sinfonia Antartica (No.7) and No.9 (CD HLD 7558):

BBC Music Magazine “consistently gripping in its trenchant honesty and patient empathy for the composer’s idiom” (June 2022)

Michael Cookson Music Web International
“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. When he conducts them, I sense an inherent lucidity of vision for each score as he communicates a broad range of emotion, ranging from majestic awe to brooding reflection, to spine-chilling menace. Meticulously prepared, the Hallé responds so emphatically here to its music director.”

     Previous volumes:

•  ‘The Sea Symphony’ (CD HLL 7542) Gramophone Editor’s Choice (Oct 2015)
• Symphonies No.5 & 8 (CD HLL 7533) Sunday Times Album of the Week and Music Web Recording of the Month (April 2013); Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ (May 2013)
• ‘The London Symphony’/ Oboe Concerto (CD HLL 7529) BBC Radio 3 CD Review Disc of the Week (31 December 2011)
• Symphony No.4 and 6 (CD HLL 7547)

Catalogue number CD HLL 7559