George Dyson: Choral Symphony & St. Paul's Voyage to Melita

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This is the Symphony’s premiere recording. It is a very good one. Conductor David Hill shapes the opening movement, an amalgam of overture and chorus, with evident affection…[Dyson’s] individuality... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 10th Nov 2017
Catalogue No: 8573770
Label: Naxos
Length: 75 minutes

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Dyson: Choral Symphony

Work length44:09

$12.00

$15.40

$21.00

Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Caitlin Hulcup (mezzo-soprano), Joshua Ellicott (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone)
Bach Choir, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
David Hill
Recorded: 11-12 February 2017
Recording Venue: Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts, Dorset, UK

Choral Symphony: I. Overture. Adagio - Allegro energico

Track length11:57

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Choral Symphony: II. Allegro agitato, ma non troppo - Quasi adagio e molto tranquillo

Track length10:42

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Choral Symphony: III. Largo

Track length10:35

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Choral Symphony: IV. Allegro molto - Andante tranquillo - Con moto comodo

Track length10:55

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Dyson: St. Paul's Voyage to Melita

Work length31:11

Album only

Joshua Ellicott (tenor)
Bach Choir, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
David Hill

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About

Born into a working-class family, George Dyson became one of the most important musicians and composers of his day. The previously unknown Choral Symphony was written as an examination work while Dyson was studying at Oxford, and it was only recently discovered at the Bodleian Library. Dyson relishes his dramatic chosen text from Psalm 107 on the expulsion from and homecoming of the Jews to Israel, a narrative that inspires trademark features that would make his later works so attractive. Its seascape finale links neatly with St. Paul’s Voyage to Melita, another vivid text from which Technicolor musical images are conjured.

Reviews

January 2018

This is the Symphony’s premiere recording. It is a very good one. Conductor David Hill shapes the opening movement, an amalgam of overture and chorus, with evident affection…[Dyson’s] individuality merges most sharply in the dark-hued Largo, a choral lament whose intensity if impressively sustained by Hill and his singers…For followers of Dyson’s music, this new CD is without question a mandatory purchase.

January/February 2018

On this showing, none could surely disagree with Spicer’s view that these and other neglected Dyson works fully deserve to become once more an important part of our landscape. Music lovers might well start the ball rolling with this highly recommended recording.

January 2018

[Watts] brings a sense of love and fluidity to her solo contributions…Even in the opening pages there are textural devices and harmonic glances that colour the tale, while the proverbial sea spray of the storm sequence is thrilling…Perhaps not a masterpiece, but the Voyage is worth a listen.

Classical Ear February 2018

Dyson’s Choral Symphony, composed when he was a student at Oxford, was only discovered recently and is here recorded for the first time. It’s an ambitious setting of Psalm 107 “on the expulsion from and homecoming of the Jews to Israel”, which draws from Dyson music of lyrical beauty, dramatic fervour and majestic aspiration, very assured and very English.

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