ENGLISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RECORDS RELEASES SIBELIUS SYMPHONIES 6 & 7 AND TAPIOLA ON 25 APRIL 202510/2/2025 ESO Records releases its second album, of Sibelius's Symphonies No. 6 and No. 7, and symphonic poem Tapiola, on 25 April 2025, with the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods (ESO2502), in partnership with Ulysses Arts. Full details including artwork, pre-order and streaming links will be published here. Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio producers available from Ulysses Arts.
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Lyrita Recorded Edition releases British Piano Concertos on 2 May 2025, with music by John Addison, Philip Cannon and Francis Chagrin, performed by soloist Simon Callaghan with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by William Boughton (SRCD.444) Philip Cannon’s Concertino for piano and strings (1951) dates from his formative years. It was written for the Petersfield Festival, where it was premiered on 27 January 1951 by soloist Joseph Cooper, with the Petersfield Orchestra conducted by Kathleen Merritt. This lively, neo-classical piece has achieved over a thousand performances internationally. Though John Addison’s Concertino for piano and orchestra is, for the most part, couched in a light-hearted language, it is the product of a serious, and unfailingly inventive, approach to keyboard and orchestral writing. Speaking of the work to Lesie Ayre of the London Evening News, the composer remarked that, ‘it is a real concerto in the full sense of the word...I would not be ashamed to show the work to any first-class pianist’. Francis Chagrin maintained an intensely practical and unpretentious attitude towards his own craft, observing that, ‘My music is not for first performances– it is just to be played’. His Piano Concerto was first performed by soloist Franz Osborn, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, at an SPNM Experimental Rehearsal held at the Royal College of Music on 4 February 1944. Conversation Piece by John Addison was written in 1958 to a commission from the BBC Concert Orchestra for that year’s British Light Music Festival. John Addison felt that, by the late-1950s, too great a divide had opened up between serious and light music: ‘Concert goers think contemporary music is so alarmingly serious that when confronted with a mildly witty turn of phrase, they assume something has gone wrong. I remember the astonished sigh of relief when, in the course of introducing one of my chamber works, I told the audience I would not mind if they smiled’. In Conversation Piece, Addison exploits to the full his talent to amuse and divert. Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with a highly successful career as a recording artist. A favourite performer at the internationally-renowned Husum Festival of Piano Rarities in Germany, Callaghan’s recent sell-out concert was praised by VAN Magazine as a “cleverly curated recital full of discoveries” and by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “technically brilliant”. Callaghan has developed a wide following and appears on a regular basis in the UK’s major concert halls, and on tours to Asia, North America and Europe. Recital partners have included Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Nicholas Daniel, Adrian Brendel, Feng Ning, Samuel West, Prunella Scales and Timothy West. BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist Coco Tomita and Callaghan have a successful duo partnership which saw their first record released in 2022 on Orchid Classics. He is also a founding member of the London Piano Quartet, joining colleagues from the renowned Piatti Quartet to showcase the repertoire for piano quartet with a particular focus on revivifying works that have fallen into obscurity. Digital pre-order and streaming links will be published here. Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio presenters available from Ulysses Arts. English Symphony Orchestra Records announces the release of its first album, with live recordings of Elgar Symphony No. 1 and In The South conducted by Principal Conductor and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods, on 28 March 2025, in partnership with Ulysses Arts (ESO2501). Pre-Release Singles Pre-order and streaming links will be published here. Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio producers available from Ulysses Arts. Nimbus Records releases Trio Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch performing Beethoven's complete Piano Trios, and Triple Concerto with The Orchestra of The Swan conducted by Eckehard Stier on 7 March 2025 (NI1709). Trio Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch was founded in 2009 and comprises three of the finest international instrumentalists performing today. Playing chamber music together at the Pablo Casals Prades Festival Hagai Shaham and Raphael Wallfisch recognised an immediate musical synergy. Arnon Erez joined them for trio concerts in Lucerne and the Netherlands later that year and the Trio Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch was established. Since its formation, the Trio has been invited numerous times to prestigious chamber music series at venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Rotterdam De Doellen, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. The Trio often appears in Spain, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Israel and Canada, and were invited by the Wigmore Hall to present the complete Beethoven piano trios in 2020. The monumental 'Archduke' Trio Op.97 represents Beethoven at the peak of his creativity in the genre. Sketches for all four movements of this 'symphony scored for atrio' are included in a sketchbook of 1810 containing also drafts for the Egmont music and the String Quartet in F minor Op.95… Three years elapsed before the work's public premiere, by Beethoven, Schuppanzigh and Linke, on 11 April 1814 as part of a charity concert in the hall of the 'Hotel zum Römischen Kaiser' in Vienna. This concert sounded the death knell of Beethoven's public career as a pianist, owing to his profound deafness… Although Haydn and Mozart contributed much to the piano trio's evolution, Beethoven breathed new life and dynamism into the medium, expanded its size and scale and enriched its thematic and tonal substance. His trios provided a benchmark for the further flowering of the genre in the nineteenth century, as exemplified in the works of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Dvorák. Digital download and streaming links will be published here. Electronic press kit available from Ulysses Arts. Lyrita Records releases the world première recording of Grace Williams, Missa Cambrensis, on 7 March 2025, with the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales conducted by Adrian Partington, soloists April Fredrick, Angharad Lyddon, Robert Murray and Paul Carey Jones, Côr Heol y March (music director, Eleri Roberts) and narration by The Very Rev'd Dr Rowan Williams (SRCD 442). “Arguably the most prominent female composer from Wales, Grace Williams (1906-1977) is enjoying a revival of interest, with several new recordings of her music in recent years.” David Smith, Presto Music Inscribed to the memory of Grace Williams’s friend Nancy Elizabeth Jenkins, who died of cancer shortly before the work was completed, Grace Williams’s Missa Cambrensis is a full-scale setting of the Mass in Latin and Welsh, scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, mixed chorus, boys’ choir, orchestra and speaker. The orchestral forces required consist of two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, (second doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (two players: cymbals, glockenspiel, tubular bells, tam tam), piano and strings. Missa Cambrensis is Grace Williams’s magnum opus, the last major musical statement by a composer of rare integrity. It dominates all her other concert works, investing the score with a commanding, almost legendary status. A. F. Leighton Thomas once commented on ‘the essentially human quality of her music’ and this directly communicative aspect of her writing shines through the score. Her honesty and sincerity inform her individual treatment of the Latin text and the Welsh additions to the material are a natural corollary of the pride she took in her nationality. As Malcolm Boyd concluded, the Missa Cambrensis is ‘a work of great power, rich in incident, generous in feeling, and exemplary in craftsmanship’. © Paul Conway, 2024 “It’s stunning. There is so many moments that are really moving … there’s a kind of incandescence about the writing and a degree of musical imagination that just seems to sparkle.” April Fredrick, interview with Antony Smith, Managing Director, Nimbus Records “The Missa Cambrensis of Grace Williams, her last large scale composition, is the crowing jewel of her choral output. Whilst demonstrating a high regard to Benjamin Britten the Missa Cambrensis is imbued with lyrical inspiration and a powerful unique voice. From the incorporation of the Welsh Carol Nadolig and the reading of the Beatitudes in Welsh, her voice soars throughout demonstrating masterful craftmanship at every turn. My hope is that this recording contributes to raising the recognition that her music deserves, which may lead to more performances of this outstanding contribution to the choral repertoire.” Matthew Wood, Senior Producer, BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales Grace Williams gives “a reminder that preaching, communicating the Gospel speaks to something other than just the ideas we have in our heads. It speaks to the rhythms of our bodies, our breath, our blood.” Dr. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, interview with Antony Smith, Managing Director, Nimbus Records Missa Cambrensis Track List I. Kyrie Eleison 1.Kýrie, eléison. Christe, eléison 5:06 II. Gloria 2. Glória in excélsis Deo 2:44 3. Laudamus Te 4:03 4. Domine Deus 2:42 5. Qui tollis peccata mundi 2:01 6. Quonium to solus sanctus 1:04 7. Cum Sancto Spiritu 2:31 8. III. Credo in unum Deum 6:32 9. Carol Nadolig 2:00 10. Credo [conclusion] 1:40 11. Beatitudes 2:41 12. Crucifixus 10:45 13. IV. Sanctus 6:44 14 Benedictus 5:39 15. V. Agnus Dei 3:26 16 Dona Nobis Pacem 6:56 Pre-order, download and streaming links will be published here. Press kit and listening links for reviewers and radio producers available from Ulysses Arts.
Lyrita Records releases a double album of Gavin Higgins, The Fairie Bride, with Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams, The Three Choirs Festival Chorus and BBC National Orchestra Orchestra of Wales conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourishes for solo horn, with soloist Ben Goldscheider, and the BBCNOW conducted by Jaime Martin, on 7 February 2025 (SRCD 440).
Gavin Higgins’ music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working-class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with its own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It’s a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coalmines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with its sounds, its colours and its stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. © Gillian Moore
Horn Concerto “… the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn -Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish- mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self. The Horn Concerto connects to the past in other ways. It’s written in E-flat, the key of famous Horn Concertos by Mozart and Strauss. It also amplifies and expands the sound of the solo horn by giving it a prominent relationship with the quartet of horns in the orchestra, calling to mind Robert Schumann’s blazing Konzertstuck from the middle of the 19th century and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto, written at the turn of the 21st.” The Faerie Bride Gavin looks west ward from the Forest of Dean to a Welsh tale from the Red Book of Hergest, an important mediaeval manuscript of Welsh history, poetry and stories. The legend of The Lady of the Lake tells of a water spirit who emerges from Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons and marries an earthly man, having insisted on a clear prenup agreement: if he strikes her three times (she uses the curious and ambiguous phrase ‘heart’s blow’ which suggests mental rather than physical cruelty) she will go back into the lake and take everything she has brought to the marriage with her. Tales of watery spirits who take human form to lure men to doom are abundant in European culture… but, Gavin says, ‘The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences.’
Press kit for reviewers and radio presenters available from Ulysses Arts.
ULYSSES ARTS RELEASES STEPHEN HORNE SOUNDTRACK TO HITCHCOCK'S THE MANXMAN ON 10 JANUARY 202518/9/2024
Ulysses Arts releases Stephen Horne's soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 silent film The Manxman, orchestrated and conducted by Ben Palmer wth the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone and soloists Louise Hayter, oboe, and Jeff Moore, violin, on 10 January 2025 (UA240130). The Manxman will be screened live at the 2025 San Francisco Silent Film Festival on 11 January at Grace Cathedral.
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One of the world's leading silent film performers, Stephen Horne is a house musician at London’s British Film Institute Southbank. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes simultaneously. He regularly plays internationally and his accompaniments have met with acclaim at numerous film festivals across Europe, North America and Asia.
Stephen has recorded music for many restorations of classic and rediscovered silent films. In 2011 and 2012, he was commissioned to compose scores for the London Film Festival galas of The First Born and The Manxman. In 2012 his accompaniment for Rotaie won first prize at the Bonn Sommerkino Festival and he was subsequently invited to repeat the performance at that year’s Beethovenfest. For ten consecutive years, from 2014 to 2024, he has won in one or more categories in Silent London’s end-of-year poll. In 2021 he recorded Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on several of his silent film scores. It was released by Ulysses Arts and has performed well across digital platforms. In 2022, his orchestral score for Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premiered at the pre-opening night of the Venice Film Festival. ![]()
In 2022, with the help of conductor-orchestrator Ben Palmer, Stephen completed two fully orchestrated scores for films that he had previous scored for small ensemble. Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premièred at the Venice Film Festival and The Manxman formed the closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone in Italy.
The Manxman: Pre-Release Singles
Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio producers is available from Ulysses Arts Ltd.
LYRITA RELEASES GEORGE LLOYD'S COMPLETE VIOLIN CONCERTOS AND CELLO CONCERTOS ALBUM ON 5 JULY 202421/5/2024
Lyrita Recorded Edition releasesGeorge Lloyd's Violin Concertos and 'Cello Concerto album on 5 July 2024. The Violin Concertos are performed by Cristina Angeleschu and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Parry; the 'Cello Concerto with Anthony Ross and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Alan Miller. The Concertos' printed scores (SRMP 0066, 0070 and 0074 and associated sheet music) will be published on 2 August.
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'George Lloyd started to learn the violin at the age of five and he was a pupil of the violinist Albert Sammons for six years. Despite his facility in playing the violin and the importance he attached to his lessons with Sammons, Lloyd was slow to compose works for his own instrument. It was not until 1970 that Lloyd wrote Violin Concerto No. 1, his first piece with a leading role for his own instrument, but this achievement seemed to stir his enthusiasm and during the next seven years he completed a number of short pieces for violin and piano, a fully-fledged sonata and a second concerto. Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 1970 and remained unperformed until the recording featured on this release took place in the summer of 1998. Seven years elapsed before Lloyd wrote a second concerto for the violin. One of Lloyd’s purest, most directly communicative melodies graces the Largo third movement.
The solo instrument’s poetic qualities are to the fore in music of supplicatory spirit. In a couple of ear-catching passages, the soloist’s scrunchy, dissonant chords have the raspy nostalgia of a squeeze box. Lloyd completed his 'Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death at the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece, one can discern a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument’s inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer’s expressive needs, and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd’s most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings.' © Paul Conway 'These two works were recorded during the week before George Lloyd died on July 3, 1998. He was supposed to conduct these performances, but David Parry stepped in at the last minute with the wonderful Romanian violinist Cristina Anghelescu and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra to complete the project. The recording was made in Henry Wood Hall. George was even too ill to attend the sessions, but he was making suggestions as to the best placement of the players to achieve just the recorded sound he wanted 48 hours before his death. This beautiful recording is a fine and lasting memorial to this composer whose music brings such passionate joy to so many music lovers all over the world.' Presto Classical
'Those familiar with Lloyd's warm, spacious, big-hearted, sumptuously orchestrated symphonies won't be disappointed with his violin concertos.' American Record Guide
Electronic press kit and pre-release listening links are available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.
Nimbus releases Robert Saxton's Epic of Gilgamesh and The Resurrection of the Soldiers (NI 6447) on 5 July 2024 with the English Symphony Orchestra and English String Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Woods.
Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest written literary text in Middle Eastern/Western cultural history, predating the Hebrew Bible. The epic relates the story of King Gilgamesh, partly divine, partly human, who may have existed historically circa 2800 BC. From immature youth and a belief in his immortality, he eventually comes to accept the power and reality of Death.
There are five movements/scenes including the Prologue, where the gods try to restore a sense of balance, the journey to the Forest of Cedar in search of glory, and Apotheosis, where Gilgamesh visits Ut Napishti (precursor of Noah in Genesis) who survived the Flood and had been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh fails the final task set by Ut-Napishti to test his suitability for eternal life, returning to Uruk to build his lasting monument, the city walls. The Resurrection of the Soldiers for string orchestra was commissioned by George Vass, to whom it is dedicated, and the English Symphony Orchestra, for the 2016 Presteigne Festival, with funds generously donated by the John S. Cohen Foundation and the Arts Council of England. The title derives from the final panel of Stanley Spencer’s Sandham Chapel visionary series of paintings which were the result of Spencer’s experiences in the British Army in World War One and depicts soldiers emerging from their graves on the last day. The piece is in three continuous parts: a slow, sustained introduction which is, in essence, a descent from the note E by means of a prolation canon, but which ascends to a rather intense climactic point before falling and giving way to a very active fugue which, after arriving at an anguished, sustained climax, is succeeded by a closing slow movement consisting of arising melodic line which permeates the entire texture heterophonically, leading to the closing E major triad. The work thus traces a cyclical path as it progresses towards a sense of resurrection, re-birth and hope. © Robert Saxton
'Full of captivating music-making, two remarkable and compelling compositions, magnificently played.' Guy Rickards, Gramophone, July 2024
'In Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh – a work that is subtle yet approachable in its idiom – Saxton reveals an understated orchestral mastery.' Robert Saxton Composer Profile
Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone, 12 July 2024 'The strings cope with some fantastically demanding writing with apparent ease.' Kevin Mandry, British Music Society, 18 July 2024 'Fans of orchestral music will be impressed by this movingly powerful and emotionally charged symphonic poem.' Keith Finke, AllMusic, 2024 ![]()
Robert Saxton was born in London in 1953. At 21 he won the Gaudeamus International Composers Prize in Holland and was Fulbright Arts Fellow at Princeton in 1986. Now Robert is Emeritus Professor of Composition at Oxford University, Composer-in-Association at the Purcell School, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music.
Robert has been commissioned by the BBC, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Oorchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble, Antara, Arditti and Chilingirian Quartets, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (USA) and written for the Huddersfield, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Lichfield and Three Choirs Festivals.
Electronic press kit and listening link available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.
Alex Heffes's score to Shardlake, featuring the Paraorchestra and choir Tenebrae, is now available from Hollywood Records, released on 24 April 2024. The series releases worldwide on Disney+ and Hulu on 1 May. The soundtrack also features Alex Heffes playing electric 'cello.
Shardlake is an eerie whodunnit adventure, based on the popular historical novels by C. J. Sansom. Set in 16th-Century England during the dissolution of the monasteries, lawyer Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) is sent by Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor (Sean Bean) to the remote town of Scansea. Shardlake's mission is to investigate the death of a commissioner and to seize the wealth of Scansea's monastery, accompanied by the ambitious Jack Barak (Anthony Boyle). Shardlake, the central character, is disabled, therefore making it especially apt that Disney chose to collaborate with the Para Orchestra - the world’s only orchestra built around people with a range of disabilities.
Flim Music Reporter, 26 Apr 2024
Electronic press kit available from Ulysses Arts ![]()
Alex Heffes is a Golden Globe, BAFTA and three-times Ivor Novello nominated composer who has scored over 70 feature films and TV projects. He has worked with many of cinema’s top filmmakers including Steven Frears, Kevin Macdonald, Catherine Hardwicke, Mira Nair, Michael Keaton & J J Abrams. His wide range of work includes scores to Macdonald’s The Last King Of Scotland & State Of Play, Justin Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, Mira Nair’s Queen Of Katwe and Michael Keaton’s Knox Goes Away. Notable TV projects include Black Mirror (Shut Up & Dance), the award-winning reboot of TV classic Roots, the Stephen King mini series 11.22.63 produced by J.J. Abrams and the HBO limited series The Regime starring Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant.
Known for his great versatility across genres, Alex has shown himself equally at home scoring biopics such as Stephen Frears’ The Program, horror in The Rite, action in Escape Plan, comedy in Catherine Hardwicke’s Mafia Mamma and natural history films such as BBC Earth's Earth: One Amazing Day and The Elephant Queen for Apple TV+. His unique ability to collaborate with artists also been been a trademark of his style. It was his iconic score to Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland that first sent Alex to record in Africa where he created a blend of world music and orchestral scoring. His solo album Face To Face features collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Regina Spektor and Yasmin Levy and his score to A Suitable Boy features a collaboration with Anoushka Shankar. He collaborated closely with director Tim Burton on his screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd. Alex’s many honors include nominations for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and several International Film Music Critics Awards as well as wins and nominations at The World Soundtrack Awards, European Film Awards and The Royal Television Society. He has been nominated three times for an Ivor Novello, winning for Best Film Score of the Year. His score to Roots won Best TV Score of the Year at the Hollywood Music In Media Awards. In 2016 he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Lyrita releases George Lloyd Piano Concertos album on 7 June 2024, conducted by the composer10/4/2024 Lyrita Records continues its 2024 George Lloyd Signature Edition releases with the complete Piano Concertos, on Friday 7 June, with soloists Martin Roscoe and Kathryn Stott, and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer (SRCD 2421). George Lloyd’s four piano concertos come from his time as a smallholder at Ryewater in Dorset during the 1960s and 70s. 'Lloyd was already thinking of writing a piano concerto when he heard the playing of John Ogdon, at that time one of Britain’s most promising and interesting younger pianists. Lloyd kept Ogdon’s playing in mind as he wrote his single movement Piano Concerto No.1 ‘Scapegoat’ in 1962/63… it has an improvisatory feel and…jazz variations…There are so many colours and shadings in the orchestral part that make it as important as the piano part. Lloyd intended to write a three-movement work, but the initial material worked itself into a single movement concerto. This remarkable work was first performed in October 1964 by John Ogdon with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves. This led to a friendship with Ogdon, with Lloyd helping the pianist with the orchestration of some of his own compositions.” © Bruce Reader, The Music of George Lloyd The effort of writing his Seventh Symphony, with its predominantly tragic tone, at the end of the 1950s had taken a heavy toll on the composer’s mental health and by the start of the following decade he was in a very negative frame of mind. Not for the first time in his life, the act of composing provided the key to alleviating the situation, as he explained: ‘... around the very early sixties, a few darker thoughts – tragic thoughts – began haunting me. With them musical ideas began to formulate, and I began to wonder if this might be the time for that piano concerto’. If the first three piano concertos have the heft and communicative power of Lloyd’s larger middle-period symphonies, the Fourth has a close affinity to the Ninth Symphony, which was completed the previous year. Both pieces exhibit an impish sense of fun, tempered by profound feelings of yearning and regret. George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large-scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd’s four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. © Paul Conway 'The interpretations are thoroughly committed. Martin Roscoe and Kathryn Scott prove to be wonderful storytellers at the piano, repeatedly creating great moods and revealing a wide repertoire of stylistic expression – from romantic virtuosity and impressionistic intimacy to exuberant jazz elements. The orchestras are also highly committed, shining with delicate string sounds, solemn tutti and dynamic rhythms.' Remy Franck, Pizzicato, 13 June 2024 Electronic press kit available for reviewers. Digital download and streaming links will be posted here.
Nimbus Records releases Steve Elcock, Symphony No. 8 and Violin Concerto on Friday 7 June 2024 (NI. 6446), with the English Symphony Orchestra and soloist Zoë Beyers, conducted by Kenneth Woods, as part of their 21st Century Symphony Project.
The 21st Century Symphony Project The 21st Century Symphony Project (21CSP) is an English Symphony Orchestra initiative conceived by conductor Kenneth Woods. The initial goal was to commission, premiere and record nine new symphonies by nine different composers. The 21CSP has been called 'one of the most important musical initiatives of modern times' by Robert Matthew-Walker, Editor of Musical Opinion, and 'the most important series of commissions and recordings of our times' by musicologist and cultural commentator Peter Davison, former Artistic Consultant at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Alongside Steve Elcock’s Symphony No. 8, other works in the 21st Century Symphony Project include David Matthews Symphony No. 9 (NI 6382), Philip Sawyers Symphony No. 3 (NI 6353) and Adrian Williams, Symphony No. 1 (NI 6432). ![]() Symphony No. 8 'Following the weighty Sixth and Seventh symphonies, I felt the need to write a smaller scale piece before tackling the Ninth, the finale of which was already written and was monumental enough in character to require some substantial movements to precede it. I attempted to produce such a lighter piece by turning to an early string quartet written in 1981 when I was aged 24. I had dismissed it as juvenilia but thought it could perhaps be salvaged by arranging it for string orchestra and filling out the textures… While my first two symphonies still await either performance or recording after a quarter of a century, the Eighth was already on the programme of the Three Choirs Festival before I had even finished reorchestrating it… Symphony no. 8 was commissioned by the English Symphony Orchestra and first performed by them as part of the Three Choirs Festival in Kidderminster on July 28, 2021.' © Steve Elcock Violin Concerto 'With the first movement, I wanted to achieve a return to the classical momentum that had largely been lost throughout the Romantic era and onward. The energy is unflagging, verging on the desperate, relief being provided only by the two appearances of the expansive second theme; but even this is underpinned by a niggling rhythm in the violas. The second movement provides a welcome contrast. Its opening makes use of change-ringing techniques applied to slowly moving scales in violins and violas, evoking distant bells ringing across a valley.' © Steve Elcock
'Juxtaposing two major works which confirm his standing among the leading European symphonists of his generation ... This latest release warrants the strongest of recommendations.'
Richard Whitehouse, Arcana, 18 May 2024 'The more I discover and experience the music of Steve Elcock, the more I feel the need to recommend it to anyone who happens to read this review. If you enjoy classical music in general, with a preference for symphonic writing, this living composer ticks all the boxes when it comes to harmonic integrity, orchestration colors and textures, emotive power and structural stability.' Jean Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel, 13 June 2024
Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts
Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's A Litany and A Symphonic Mass, conducted by the composer, on 3 May 2024, with Bounemouth Symphony Orchestra/Brighton Festival Chorus, soprano Janice Watson and bass Jeremy White, and Philharmonia Orchestra with Guildford Choral Society (SRCD 2419).
‘I just write what I have to write’. The artistic credo of George Lloyd conveys the directness and emotional honesty of his music, which is distinctive and written with integrity. He was fortunate enough to discover his individual and versatile musical voice at an early age. The deceptively artless quality of his scores stems from a thorough grounding in composition techniques.
Lloyd wrote in a traditional idiom enriched by a close study of selected models, Verdi and Berlioz chief among them. There is a remarkable consistency to his output, most of which was created spontaneously and without the incentive of a commission. Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd’s late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. Chris de Souza writing in The Independent, 1998, described the Brighton Festival commission of A Symphonic Mass as ‘perhaps the climax’ of Lloyd’s ‘astonishing career’. In his review of the original release of the present recording, Ivan March was moved to describe the Mass as ‘one of the finest pieces of English choral writing of the twentieth century’.
Electronic press kit available for reviwers.
Digital download and streaming links will be published here.
Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's complete symphonies and other orchestral works, conducted by the composer, on 1 March (SRCD.2417) and 5 April 2024 (SRCD.2418).
'Lloyd became a symphonist despite himself. When he was in his twenties he seemed destined to be a composer of operas and it is likely that, had the vicissitudes of war not intervened, he would have written music for the stage exclusively. In an article for the June 1939 issue of the Musical Monthly Record, Harry Farjeon wondered why music for Lloyd was ‘not centred in the concert hall but in the theatre’ and quoted the young composer as being ‘interested only in opera’.
There are strong traces in the symphonies of what might have been: the intensely lyrical, cantabile nature of the writing; the intermezzo-like movements; the opera buffa qualities of the finales and the feeling for the long line which runs through those supple and sweeping melodies all denote a born opera composer. In the event, his operatic aspirations were cruelly cut short and it is to his courageous, life-affirming twelve symphonies that we must look to chart his development, recovery and eventual triumph.' © Paul Conway Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel Symphonies Vol. 1, March 2024 Symphonies Vol. 2, April 2024
Electronic press kit available for reviewiers from Ulysses Arts.
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