English music only – foreigners need not apply
mainThe English Music Festival is launching its own record label with unperformed and under-performed music by indigenous composers, starting with world premieres of violin sonatas by Sir Arthur Bliss and Sir Walford Davies.
NEWS RELEASE
New record
label revives overlooked works by British composers
This spring sees the launch of a
new record label devoted exclusively to English music – EM Records – whose
debut album includes
two major world-première recordings.
The
Violin Sonatas by
Arthur Bliss and
Henry Walford Davies have languished in manuscript form for over 100 years.
They were both given their première concert performances by Rupert Luck and
Matthew Rickard at the 2010 English Music Festival in Oxfordshire, and were
given a rapturous reception by an enthralled Festival audience. EM Records presents these two passionate and
heartfelt Sonatas alongside the opulent and darkly turbulent Violin Sonata by York
Bowen.
The new record company has been set
up in association with the English Music Festival (www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk).
The company’s Managing Director, Em
Marshall (also founder of the English Music Festival), describes the mission of
EM Records as “fulfilling the EMF’s goal of celebrating and preserving
neglected works by British composers, especially those from the early years of
the twentieth century – the ‘golden renaissance’ of English music.”
She says the company “will release
a mixture of live recordings from the Festival together with studio recordings,
giving listeners the chance to experience the fullest possible range of the EMF’s
work. In keeping with the unique spirit of the Festival each disc released by
EM Records will contain at least one world première recording. We want to ensure that no English works worthy of
hearing are ever again left unavailable to listeners.”
EM Records is a ground-breaking enterprise, presenting
repertoire that, though previously unrecorded, is vital, vivid and powerful;
and, through its commitment to this endeavour, complements the pioneering work
of a leading and internationally-acclaimed Festival.
Plans
are already underway for future releases. These include the World Première
recording of
Gustav Holst’s The Coming of Christ (which received its first contemporary performance in
the
2010
EMF) performed by the City of London Choir under Hilary Davan Wetton; and a
recording of
Roger Quilter’s piano music, performed by David Owen Norris. Also
forthcoming is a live recording, to be made at the 2011 Festival, of part-songs
by Rawsthorne, Haydn Wood, Robin Milford, Finzi and Holst, performed by the Syred Consort
under their conductor, Ben Palmer.
Contact Em Marshall, Director, EM
Records, for more information or interview. em.marshall@btinternet.com
www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/emrecords.html
-ENDS-
Would you receive a new record label aimed at overlooked French composers with sneers about garlic and frogs? Of course you wouldn’t.
I am discovering Dunhill, Templeton, Richardson, Barthe, Pitfield, Elgar, and Nicholas pieces for oboe and piano. It took some digging to be able to find and purchase the music. I love to play them yet did not find much recordings available to listen to them. I must admit that there indeed are English smell and taste in the music, which, I also must admit, is much much better than that of English food. I am not an English, however. I guess I need not apply…
Five minutes on Google will reveal web sites, record labels and organisations devoted to Jewish music and just about any other specific type of music you care to mention.
Did you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning or something? And how do you feel about the MOBO awards?
I have been reading your books and articles for years and often find them illuminating and fascinating. But perhaps you go to far here? This festival, and now record label, is not a political party and therefore does not need to be banned. To even hint at such is patently ridiculous. Marshall has a passion for a certain area of repertoire, which I welcome because I, like many, enjoy it too. Sure, she could take in, say, romantic Swedish composers like Atterberg, but why? However, Hans Gal is a very good idea since there is a strong British connection and he could be made to fit into the festival’s mandate.
So the EMF prefers the less dissonant offerings of the 20th C. Why is that bad? All it means is that, in the anthropological sense, Marshall is focusing mainly on composers who best spoke the harmonic and tonal language of their time. If you want background on those who invented more esoteric idioms, you can go to the history books which tend to focus on that side of 20th C music. There you will find that you are certainly not the first person to laugh at the composers championed by the EMF.
This is really a historiographical issue. How do we define the 20th C? Marshall helps provide a strong alternative view of the sort that you will find in very few overviews of 20th C music, but one that probably tens of thousands of music lovers welcome since it is along the same lines as the tastes of the owners of Chandos, Hyperion (and, from an Americal perspective, Albany), and we all know how successful they have been with connoisseurs of new and unusual repertoire.
My parents were Russian-German immigrants. I am a Canadian. I say, long live the English Music Festival!
(sorry for the long post… bad manners, I know)
I don’t really think there is a need to be so mean-spirited. Why should every festival cover every possible angle? To take just your two most celebrated examples, Goldschmidt emigrated to England at 32, Panufnik at 40 – and neither would be described as British composers, irrespective of their contributions to the UK’s musical life, and I’m not sure they should be required to take up valuable time in a festival which only has a limited numnber of concerts and specifically exists to promote English composers of the early years of the 20th century. You may not feel that the music of Bliss and Walford Davies is worth such scrutiny, but no doubt many do, and no concert series can be all things to all people. We know you enjoy stirring for stirring’s sake, but it does get tiresome…
“Borderline offensive” sums up the comments of Norman Lebrecht rather than the efforts of the English Music record label. He needs a little of the generosity of spirit he so readily denies to the praiseworthy efforts of others. The new label apparently stands condemned on just the evidence of its first four announced recordings which, even if the criticism was valid, is hardly a fair trial. No, clearly there is a deeper agenda of disapproval here.