Sea Change
Choral Music of Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
The Cambridge Singers, John Rutter
Outstanding performances of music by a composer who wrote superbly for voices. There are many highlights but Lullay Mine Liking stands out for its tenderness and the fine soloists.
Sea Change
Choral Music of Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
The Cambridge Singers, John Rutter
Purchase product
Outstanding performances of music by a composer who wrote superbly for voices. There are many highlights but Lullay Mine Liking stands out for its tenderness and the fine soloists.
About
Re-Mixed & Re-Mastered for March 2013
Taking advantage of the latest advances in audio technology, this re-release of the first recorded survey of choral music the composer Richard Rodney Bennett is presented in a new stereo mix for the first time, in a spirit of tribute to his long and distinguished career.
The CD spans a period of over thirty years from the Five Carols written in 1967 through to A Farewell to Arms written in 2001. The disc also includes his virtuosic Sea Change, a luminous and visionary setting of various dreamlike texts; A Good Night, composed in 1999 for the ‘Garland for Linda’ project in memory of Linda McCartney and the Missa Brevis, his only piece of liturgical music, composed in 1990 for Canterbury Cathedral Choir.
Bennett’s choral pieces are all possessed of a gift for heart-melting, memorable and quintessentially English melody – and an instinctive lyric responsiveness to English poetry. Poetry always mattered intensely to Bennett and in his choral writing we find him setting some of the very greatest – Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell and Spenser – alongside slighter but exquisite lyrics by such poets as Herrick, Quarles and the medieval ‘anon’s.
Contents and tracklist
- Simon Wall, Charles Fullbrook, Sam Evans
- Cambridge Singers
- John Rutter
- Sue Dorey
- Cambridge Singers
- John Rutter
- Elin Manahan Thomas, Clare Wilkinson, Ben Breakwell, Sam Evans
- Cambridge Singers
- John Rutter
Awards and reviews
Outstanding performances of music by a composer who wrote superbly for voices. There are many highlights but Lullay Mine Liking stands out for its tenderness and the fine soloists.
24th July 2013
This is an essential album for all those who love the work of Richard Rodney Bennett, and should be heard by others too. The singing is as impeccable as one might expect, even when lamenting the lack of clarity of diction. The presentation is superlative, and as a record of Bennett’s works for a cappella chorus this is a worthy memorial to his art.
10th March 2013
One of Bennett's characteristics as a composer was his versatility: he ranged easily between opera and ballet, film score and jazz. His choral music, less well known, shares that variety...John Rutter is a loyal interpreter of his fellow choral composer. The CD, in fitting memorial, has one of Bennett's own collages as the cover illustration.
