Alec Roth - Songs in Time of War - Signum: SIGCD124 - CD or download

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Alec Roth the composer and Vikram Seth the poet become so much of a unit during the course of these song-cycles that one feels it would be quite natural to ask Roth for a personal background... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 30th Jun 2008
Catalogue No: SIGCD124
Label: Signum
Length: 61 minutes

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Alec Roth, Vikram Seth: Songs in Time of War

Work length50:10

$14.00

$19.60

$24.50

Mark Padmore, Philippe Honoré, Alison Nicholls, Morgan Szymanski

Thoughts while Travelling at Night

Track length1:33

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Grieving for the Young Prince

Track length4:06

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

The Visitor

Track length2:07

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

A Fine Lady

Track length5:21

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Dreaming of Li Bai

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Moonlit Night

Track length3:05

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

An Autumn Meditation

Track length1:23

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

The Old Cypress Tree at the Temple of Zhu-ge Liang

Track length6:33

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Spring Scene in Time of War

Track length1:27

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Toe Wei Ba, who has Llived Away from the Court

Track length4:03

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Ballad of the Army Carts

Track length5:32

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Thoughts while Travelling at Night

Track length1:46

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Cancion de la Luna

Track length5:52

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Danza de la Luna

Track length5:30

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Alec Roth, Vikram Seth: Chinese Gardens

Work length11:42

$4.00

$5.60

$7.00

Mark Padmore, Philippe Honoré, Alison Nicholls, Morgan Szymanski

The Tarrying Garden

Track length3:03

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

The Master-of-Nets Garden

Track length2:59

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

The Gentle Weaves Pavilion

Track length2:29

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

The Humble Administrator's Garden

Track length3:11

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

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About

Born in England, of German/Irish descent, Alec Roth has been Founder and Artistic Director of the Royal Festival Hall Gamelan Programme; Music Director of the Baylis Programme, English National Opera; Composer in Association, Opera North; and Lecturer in Music, University of Edinburgh. His collaborations with the Indian writer Vikram Seth include the song cycles Romantic Residues (Bury St Edmunds Festival commission 2003) and Earth and Sky for children's chorus, a BBC commission for the Proms 2000 season. Songs in Time of War is the first in a series of four major works commissioned jointly by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals, 2006- 2009.

The two pieces for solo guitar are part of an ongoing series of works by Alec Roth dedicated to the Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski: Canción de la Luna (Song of the Moon) was first performed at a Wigmore Hall recital in 2005; its companion piece, Danza de la Luna was completed in 2006 and is heard for the first time on this recording.

Chinese Gardens is a setting of poems, again by Vikram Seth, which were inspired by visits to four of the famous Ming Dynasty gardens in the Chinese city of Suzhou.

Reviews

2010

Alec Roth the composer and Vikram Seth the poet become so much of a unit during the course of these song-cycles that one feels it would be quite natural to ask Roth for a personal background to the poems and query Seth about the whistling-tune or some other feature of the music. The style (of both) is idiosyncratic – a carefully versified informality of talk, a structural development of musical motifs that sounds like free recitative. The Chinese Garden songs (Roth's is the Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical garden in Vancouver) are modern, while the Songs inTime of War derive from 8th-century China, but there is modernity in that too, just as the themes of the others might have found recognition and a response in ages of the past.
These are attractive works, the Songs in Time ofWar probably striking deepest though in an utterly non-ponderous, unpretentious way. The music takes interesting turns, as when a cynical blues passage emerges from the timeless observation that 'the great are always paid in disuse and neglect'. The resources of voice and instruments are imaginatively exploited. And the performances (by the 'creator' artists) are excellent. If the disc constitute an introduction to this composer, it is one you won't regret following up.

September 2008

These are attractive works, the Songs in Time of War probably striking deepest though in an utterly non-ponderous, unpretentious way. And the performances (by the "creator" artists) are excellent).

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