"Louis' art is not hard to follow. Louis' art is not hard to swallow." ("Everybody Loves Louis" from Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim) It's not that Alwyn's a simp -- there's heart, soul, and sincerity in his music -- and it's not that Alwyn's simple -- there's more going on thematically than appears on the tonal surface. It's ...
To commemorate William Alwyn's centenary in 2005, Naxos began its series of his complete symphonies and other orchestral works with recordings of the single-movement Symphony No. 5, "Hydriotaphia"; the Concerto for harp and orchestra, "Lyra Angelica"; and the two-movement Symphony No. 2. This composer is most famous for his scores for numerous ...
While the list of great British concerted works for violin and orchestra is long and distinguished -- Elgar, Walton, and Britten's concertos along with Vaughan Williams' one-movement The Lark Ascending -- the list of great British concerted works for viola and orchestra is nearly as long and nearly as distinguished. In addition to the concertos by ...
Britain's William Alwyn is often classed as a neo-Romantic traditionalist; the booklet for this Naxos disc likens him to the roughly contemporary American Samuel Barber. But this collection of chamber music and songs, most of it never recorded before, reveals a somewhat different Alwyn -- not a modernist surely, but a composer who was aware that ...
Though surely not the first disc of light British orchestral music the neophyte should hear -- a disc that includes Vaughan Williams' Greensleeves Fantasia and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches should certainly have that honor -- this two-disc set, called The British Light Music Collection, Vol. 1, will delight fans of orchestral music from ...
A proper title for this fifth disc in Naxos' series of recordings of the complete orchestral works of English composer William Alwyn might be "The Lighter Alwyn." With the boisterous Elizabethan Dances, the lyrical The Innumerable Dance, the nostalgic Concerto for oboe, harp, and strings, the evanescent Aphrodite in Aulis, the enchanting symphonic ...
If you're thinking of trying a single disc of the symphonic music of William Alwyn, you might think about trying this one of his Fourth Symphony coupled with his Sinfonietta for string orchestra with David Lloyd-Jones leading the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The Fourth is probably Alwyn's strongest in the genre, a three-movement work ...
While not the first disc to get if you're looking for the serious or lighter Alwyn, this disc may still be the one most folks get first if and when they decide to investigate the music of the Romantic twentieth century English composer. Why? Because it contains the Concerto for harp and string orchestra, called by its composer "Lyra Angelica" -- ...
The examples of William Alwyn's music on this recording are much closer to late Romantic music than more modern music, even though their composition dates range from 1930 to 1967. Each of the two piano concertos and the Derby Day Overture cover a wide range of feelings with dramatic contrasts. That, combined with the flashy piano writing of the ...
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