Charles Villiers Stanford: Children's Songs: including first recordings

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This charming and generously filled disc, including several first recordings, should help to rectify the neglect of these attractive vignettes since the composer’s death. — BBC Music Magazine, October 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th Aug 2022
Catalogue No: SOMMCD0655
Label: Somm
Length: 78 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

August 2022

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Stanford: A Child's Garland of Songs, Op 30

Work length15:29

$9.00

$11.70

$15.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Susie Allan (piano)

No. 1, Bed in Summer

Track length1:13

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, Pirate Story

Track length1:24

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, Foreign Lands

Track length1:44

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, Windy Nights

Track length0:54

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 5, Where Go the Boats?

Track length1:58

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 6, My Shadow

Track length2:32

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 7, Marching Song

Track length1:21

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 8, Foreign Children

Track length2:30

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 9, My Ship and Me

Track length1:53

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Stanford: Songs (4), Op.112

Work length9:48

$4.00

$5.20

$7.00

Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

No. 1, Spring

Track length1:50

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, The Silence

Track length2:59

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, The City Child

Track length1:33

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, The Vision

Track length3:26

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Stanford: Songs (6), Op.175

Work length16:30

$6.00

$7.80

$10.50

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Susie Allan (piano)

No. 1, A Song of the Bow

Track length1:26

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, Drop Me a Flower

Track length1:39

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, The Winds of Bethlehem

Track length3:55

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, The Monkey's Carol

Track length3:10

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 5, Lullaby

Track length3:37

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 6, The Unknown Sea

Track length2:43

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Stanford: Songs from the Elfin Pedlar, Book 1

Work length10:15

$6.00

$7.80

$10.50

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

No. 1, Two Little Stars

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, The Pedlar

Track length2:25

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, Little Snowdrop

Track length0:57

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, The Piper of the Spring

Track length1:49

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 5, Speedwell

Track length1:42

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 6, The Dream Ship

Track length1:30

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Stanford: Songs from the Elfin Pedlar, Book 2

Work length11:27

$6.00

$7.80

$10.50

Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Susie Allan (piano)

No. 1, Summer

Track length1:08

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, What Do You See?

Track length2:36

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, The Piper

Track length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, The Secret Place

Track length2:21

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 5, Night

Track length1:34

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 6, The Dust-Man

Track length1:01

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Stanford: Witches' Charms

Work length1:28

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: Summer's Rain and Winter's Snow

Work length1:50

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: Fairy Lures

Work length1:38

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: The Hoofs of the Horses

Work length1:47

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: A Japanese Lullaby

Work length2:28

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: Worship

Work length2:59

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Susie Allan (piano)

Stanford: The King's Highway

Work length2:23

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), Susie Allan (piano)

About
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About

SOMM Recordings continues its widely acclaimed championing of the music of Charles Villiers Stanford with a captivating collection of his Children’s Songs by mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and baritone Gareth Brynmor John, accompanied by pianist Susie Allan.

Including numerous first recordings and the first complete CD release of his setting of 14-year-old Helen Douglas Adam’s enchanting Songs from the Elfin Pedlar, it throws revealing new light on an important but largely overlooked aspect of Stanford’s output.

Stanford, as his biographer and British music authority Jeremy Dibble comments in his authoritative notes, “was very much alive to the importance of children’s participation in music” following the transformative introduction of signing to the school curriculum in 1870. This delightful compendium of songs intended for children reveals the composer to be as acutely sensitive to his eclectic choice of texts as to his intended audience.

It features premiere recordings of the early, Robert Louis Stevenson-set A Child’s Garland of Songs, op.30, the mid-period Four Songs, op.112, and later Six Songs, op.175, together with seven other standalone songs, including the simple pastoral message of Summer’s Rain and Winter’s Snow and delightfully capricious Fairy Lures.

SOMM’s previous Stanford recordings include his String Quintets (SOMMCD0623) and complete String Quartets (SOMMCD 0160, 0185, 0607) with the Dante Quartet, praised by Gramophone for their “ardent, alert and thoroughly lived-in performances”, and Partsongs with the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir led by Paul Spicer (SOMMCD0128), which Limelight described as “excellent… beautifully sung”.

SOMM’s world-premiere recording of The Travelling Companion (SOMMCD2742) was hailed “a landmark” by Gramophone, who lauded Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense (SOMMCD0627) as “a hugely enjoyable anthology… production values and presentation leave nothing to be desired”.

Reviews

October 2022

This charming and generously filled disc, including several first recordings, should help to rectify the neglect of these attractive vignettes since the composer’s death.

August 2022

Featuring a number of world premiere recordings, this lovely anthology of songs which Stanford composed in the wake of singing being added to the school curriculum should win many adult friends too - particularly the Op. 112 set, on rather weightier texts than the rest of the programme, and the deliciously dark Witches' Charm, delivered with suitably macabre relish by Whately. Superb diction throughout from both singers, who supply charm aplenty without ever over-sentimentalising the music.

25th August 2022

Some feel like historian-fodder; others are deftly written, especially those to words by the 14-year-old Helen Douglas Adam, and there’s an especially lovely Lullaby from Whately.

Charles Villiers Stanford: Children's Songs

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