Stanford: Songs - 2 - Hyperion: CDA67124 - CD or download

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Stanford's Songs of the Sea have kept the British baritone afloat for the best part of a century.
Drake's hammock and the barnacles of The Old Superb used to be familiar in parlours and drawing-... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CDA67124
Label: Hyperion
Length: 76 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Stanford: Tragödie Op. 14 No. 5 (Heinrich Heine) (1881)

Work length5:17

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Stanford: The Clown's Songs from 'Twelfth Night' Op. 65 (William Shakespeare) (1896)

Work length7:18

$3.00

$3.75

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

I. O mistress mine

Track length1:39

$1.00

$1.25

II. Come away, death

Track length4:07

$1.00

$1.25

III. The rain it raineth every day

Track length1:32

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: Songs of a Roving Celt, Op 157

Work length2:40

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

I. The Pibroch

Track length2:40

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: Phoebe Op. 125 No. 3 (Thomas Lodge) (1911)

Work length2:08

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Stanford: Songs of the Sea, Op. 91

Work length17:51

$5.00

$6.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

I. Drake's drum

Track length2:38

$1.00

$1.25

II. Outward bound

Track length3:17

$1.00

$1.25

III. Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Homeward bound

Track length6:55

$1.00

$1.25

V. The old superb

Track length3:09

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: For ever mine (Harold Boulton) (1891)

Work length3:19

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

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

Work length0:52

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

IV. Windy Nights

Track length0:52

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: A Lullaby Op. 19 No. 2 (Thomas Dekker) (1882)

Work length2:18

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Stanford: To the Rose Op. 19 No. 3 (Robert Herrick) (1882)

Work length2:08

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Stanford: Songs of Faith, Op 97

Work length6:56

$2.00

$2.50

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

IV. To the soul

Track length4:58

$1.00

$1.25

VI. Joy, shipmate, joy!

Track length1:58

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: An Irish Idyll

Work length4:25

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

II. The Fairy Lough

Track length4:25

$1.00

$1.25

Stanford: Tom Leminn ('Q' - Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) (1893)

Work length2:58

$1.00

$1.25

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Stanford: A Fire of Turf Op. 139 ( Winifred M Letts) (1913)

Work length18:49

$7.00

$8.75

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

I. A fire of turf

Track length3:56

$1.00

$1.25

II. The chapel on the hill

Track length2:52

$1.00

$1.25

III. Cowslip time

Track length1:34

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Scared

Track length2:06

$1.00

$1.25

V. Blackberry time

Track length2:09

$1.00

$1.25

VI. The fair

Track length1:41

$1.00

$1.25

VII. The west wind

Track length4:31

$1.00

$1.25

About
Reviews
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About

Here is the second disc of Stanford songs promised when the first was issued in February (CDA67123). This one contains some of Stanford's best-known songs including The Fairy Lough and the complete 'Songs of the Sea' to words by Sir Henry Newbolt (Drake's Drum, The Old Superb etc). It also includes all seven songs of A Fire of Turfaffectionate vignettes of Irish country life (Blackberry Time and The Chapel on the Hill). As with the first disc, this includes many songs of which we can find no evidence of previous recordings. A 'must' for all lovers of English songeven though Stanford was Irish.

Reviews

2010

Stanford's Songs of the Sea have kept the British baritone afloat for the best part of a century.
Drake's hammock and the barnacles of The Old Superb used to be familiar in parlours and drawing- rooms throughout the land. The cries of Captain Keats and his crew ('“Ship ahoy!” a hundred times a day'), the alliterative mysteries of 'Fetter and Faith … Faggot and Father' and the assurance that Drake even now was 'ware and waking' were assimilated almost as the words of folksongs, while the music seemed part of our flesh and blood. They are splendid songs, and the set of five constitutes a small masterpiece.
Sceptical readers should try them again in this new recording. Stephen Varcoe and Clifford Benson give a most sensitive performance, not emasculated but treating them thoughtfully.
The two quieter songs, 'Outward Bound' and 'Homeward Bound', become more central, better integrated, than usual, and the very fact that this is the solo version, without the male-voice chorus added later, makes it easier to hear them (the whole set) as a personal utterance. With 'Drake's Drum', for instance, Varcoe is very intent upon seeing sense, where others have often sought for little beyond a generalised patriotic earnestness. These, perhaps, are TheSongs of the Sea as Captain Edward Fairfax Vere might have sung them.
In reviewing the first volume, Michael Oliver wrote of the difficulty of reconciling the Irishman and the Brahmsian in Stanford: the melodic vein of the one seemed at odds with the harmonic language of the other. The occasions here when a dichotomy of style does cause trouble are found in the Songs of Faith. Whitman's auto-intoxication incites Stanford to indulge in grandiose gestures that aren't natural to him at all. He's much more at home with Shakespeare and Dekker, or, for that matter, with Quiller-Couch and Winifred M Letts, whose A Fire of Turf provides him with poems for some masterly settings. All are beautifully performed by these excellent artists.

Stanford: Songs - 2

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