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"The worth of my music will never be guessed or its value to mankind felt, until the approach to it is consciously undertaken as a pilgrimage to sorrows." So wrote Percy Grainger, a composer whose music we normally associate with the dandified frivolity of Handel in the Strand or English Country Gardens.
Stephen Layton and is fine choir Polyphony do Grainger a great service by making this disc...
Collections of the music of Percy Grainger usually emphasize its energy and spriteliness. Not this one. Preceding the first complete recording of his choral settings from Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book" is a "sea shanty" filled with the heartbreak of many of Grainger's miniatures, revealing a depth his reputation as a jolly eccentric might not have suggested.
The suffering that underlies several...
Aprés la belle anthologie de Gardiner (Philips), ce superbe album vient confirmer l’extraordinaire intuition de Grainger pour l'écriture chorale. Il met aussi en lumière une profonde affinité avec Kipling. Une infatigable énergie, la foi dans l'homme (plus particulièrement si c'est un anglo-saxon aux yeux bleus), une même fascination pour le faste verbal, la faculté de concilier la sophistication...
Ten ways to sing 'Hail Mary'
There can be fewer nicer ways to spend Christmas than in the company of Polyphony and Stephen Layton. They take themselves rather less seriously than some choirs I know: can you really imagine a choirmaster such as Peter Phillips or Paul McCreesh turning round to take the solo in White Christmas?
Yet they take their music seriously enough to perform Palestrina every...
Interpretaciones tan refrescantes como escrupulosas
Remarquable! Les Holst Singers se révèlent être de remarquables interprètes de leur cher répertoire national. Cette anthologie atteste du niveau vocal et musical de ce choeur (et donc de leur chef Stephen Layton)