The English Songbook

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The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can't be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that?... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: 5568302
Label: Warner Classics
Length: 69 minutes

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Special offer ends: 09/03/2025

Stanford: La Belle Dame sans merci (John Keats) (1877)

Work length6:28

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 27 & 28 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Gurney: Sleep

Work length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 3 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Gurney: I will go with my father a-ploughing

Work length2:28

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 2 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Dunhill: The Cloths of Heaven, Op. 30 / 3

Work length2:22

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 3, 4 & 6 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Browne, W D: To Gratiana dancing and singing

Work length3:49

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 3 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Somervell: To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars

Work length1:28

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 2 & 3 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Delius: Twilight Fancies

Work length3:49

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 28 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

German: Orpheus with his lute

Work length2:23

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 3 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Warlock: Jillian of Berry

Work length0:35

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 2 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Warlock: Cradle Song

Work length3:48

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 2 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Finzi: The dance continued

Work length4:02

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 2 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Vaughan Williams: Linden Lea

Work length2:26

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 27 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Vaughan Williams: The House of Life: No. 2, Silent Noon

Work length4:18

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 27 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

trad.: My love's an arbutus (Old Irish air)

Work length2:19

$1.00

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 4 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

trad.: The Death of Queen Jane

Work length2:47

$1.00

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Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (musician), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 6 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Parry: No longer mourn for me

Work length3:19

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 4 & 6 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Finzi: Since we loved

Work length1:16

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-04
Recording Venue: 4 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

trad.: Britten: Folksong Arrangements, Book 1 "British Isles": No. 1, The Salley Gardens

Work length2:33

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 6 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Warlock: Rest, sweet nymphs

Work length2:12

$1.00

$1.30

Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 27 & 28 Feb and 2 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Quilter: Come away, death

Work length3:01

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-02-28
Recording Venue: 28 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Quilter: Now sleeps the crimson petal, Op. 3 No. 2 (Tennyson)

Work length2:00

$1.00

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-02-28
Recording Venue: 28 February 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

trad.: Bold William Taylor

Work length3:39

$1.00

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Julius Drake (musician), Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 4 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

Traditional Lincolnshire: Brigg Fair

Work length2:34

$1.00

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Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (musician), Julius Drake (piano), Polyphony (lead vocals), Stephen Layton (director), Teddy Layton (director)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 4 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

trad.: The Little Turtle Dove

Work length2:07

$1.00

$1.30

Ian Bostridge (vocals), Julius Drake (musician), Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 1999-03-06
Recording Venue: 4 March 1999, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

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Reviews

2010

The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can't be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that? They would probably not have believed that those two pillars of the old musical establishment would still be standing by in 1999. And in fact how well very nearly all these composers stand! Quilter's mild drawing–room manners might have been expected to doom him, but the three songs here – the affectionate, easy grace of his Tennyson setting, the restrained passion of his 'Come away, death' and the infectious zest of 'I will go with my father a–ploughing' – endear him afresh and demonstrate once again the wisdom of artists who recognise their own small area of 'personal truth' and refuse to betray it in exchange for a more fashionable 'originality'.
Likewise Finzi, whose feeling for Hardy's poems is so modestly affirmed in 'The dance continued'.
Does that song, incidentally, make deliberate reference, at 'those songs we sang when we went gipsying', to Jillian of Berry by Warlock (whose originality speaks for itself)? Jillian of Berry itself perhaps calls for more full–bodied, less refined tones than Bostridge's. One could do with a ruddier glow and more rotund fruitiness in the voice. Yet for most of the programme he isn't merely a well–suited singer but an artist who brings complete responsiveness to words and music. The haunted desolation of Delius's Twilight Fancies is perfectly caught in the pale hue of the voice which can nevertheless give body and intensity to the frank cry of desire, calming then to pianissimo for the last phrase amid the dim echoes of hunting horns in the piano part. Julius Drake plays with strength of imagination and technical control to match Bostridge's own.

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