Dyson: The Canterbury Pilgrims

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This superb offering of a full-length cantata based on the Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales bears out its reputation as Dyson's masterpiece. It's a fresh, tuneful work, aptly exuberant... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CHAN9531
Label: Chandos
Length: 1 hour 57 minutes

Gramophone Awards

1997

Winner - Engineering

Chandos - Downloads at MP3 Prices

Special offer ends: 22/05/2024

Dyson: At the Tabard Inn: Overture

Work length11:50

$2.15

$2.60

Richard Hickox, London Symphony Orchestra

Dyson: The Canterbury Pilgrims

Work length1:30:57

$18.00

$22.10

Richard Hickox, London Symphony Orchestra, Yvonne Kenny, Robert Tear, Stephen Roberts, London Symphony Chorus, Malcom Hicks

I. Prologue

Track length0:52

$1.05

$1.30

I. Prologue (Fig. 2)

Track length10:06

$1.60

$1.95

II. The Knight

Track length4:50

$1.05

$1.30

III. The Squire

Track length2:59

$1.05

$1.30

IV. The Nun

Track length9:10

$1.60

$1.95

V. The Monk

Track length4:55

$1.05

$1.30

VI. The Clerk of Oxenford

Track length6:06

$1.05

$1.30

VII. The Haberdasher and his Fraternity. The Merchant

Track length6:31

$1.05

$1.30

VIII. The Sergeant of the Law. The Franklin

Track length8:23

$1.60

$1.95

IX. The Shipman

Track length4:56

$1.05

$1.30

X. The Doctor of Physic

Track length6:18

$1.05

$1.30

XI. The Wife of Bath

Track length4:38

$1.05

$1.30

XII. The Poor Parson of a Town

Track length10:11

$1.60

$1.95

XIII. L'envoi

Track length11:02

$2.15

$2.60

Dyson: In Honour of The City of London

Work length15:08

Album only

Richard Hickox, London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Malcom Hicks

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Reviews

2010

This superb offering of a full-length cantata based on the Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales bears out its reputation as Dyson's masterpiece. It's a fresh, tuneful work, aptly exuberant in its celebration of Chaucer.
Following the scheme of Chaucer's Prologue, the 12 movements, plus Envoi, present a sequence of portraits, deftly varying the forces used, with the three soloists well contrasted in their characterisations and with the chorus acting as both narrator and commentator, providing an emotional focus for the whole work in two heightened sequences, the sixth and twelfth movements, moving and noble portraits of the two characters who aroused Dyson's deepest sympathy, the Clerk of Oxenford and the Poor Parson of a Town. If the idiom is undemanding, with occasional echoes of Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony and with passages reminiscent of Rachmaninov's The Bells, the cantata sustains its length well.
Outstanding among the soloists is Robert Tear who not only characterises brilliantly but sings with admirable fullness and warmth. The beautiful, fading close, when Tear as the Knight begins the first tale, moving slowly off-stage, is most atmospherically done. Yvonne Kenny and Stephen Roberts sing well too, but are less distinctive both in timbre and expression. The London Symphony Chorus sings with incandescent tone, superbly recorded, and the orchestra brings out the clarity and colourfulness of Dyson's instrumentation.

2011 edition

the glory of the piece is the choruses, which are splendidly sung here...The splendid Chandos recording is fully worthy of the vibrant music-making here.

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