The Hilliard Ensemble
Asko | Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell conductor

Casken’s work is often inspired by literature and legend, landscape and painting and particularly by the Northumberland countryside where he lives. His compositions have won a Gramophone award, the First Britten Award for Composition, the Prince Pierre de Monaco Prize, a British Composer Award for Vocal Music, as well as shortlistings for both RPS and British Composer Awards.

The Dream of the Rood is inspired by and uses text adapted by Casken from the Anglo-Saxon poem of the same name which dramatically describes the story of the crucifixion in a highly original portrayal of Christ’s death coupled with Casken’s own arrangement of Pérotin’s Viderunt omnes, the earliest surviving vocal work of plainsong in four parts. In both arrangements, Casken introduces a large instrumental ensemble and masterfully enhances the medieval texts and music of the originals within a highly effective contemporary context. Alongside these are three pieces from the rare Conductus repertoire of the 12th/13th centuries which have been core to The Hilliard Ensemble's performing library.

This release marks the significant contribution to British music of one of its most notable vocal ensembles and one of its richest of composing voices, in work that is equally moving and dramatic.

Leslie Hatfield (violin) & Robert Plane (clarinet)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales

A Birthday Surprise (1979) [2:04]
Satie Transformations (1969-70) [16:40]
Five Diversions (1963 rev. 1970) [12:39]
Bach in Blue (2004/12/15) [5:54]
Merseyside Echoes (1988) [8:43]
Suite for the Centenary of Lord Berners [14:39]
Monologue for Strings (1959) [8:56]

Peter Dickinson: Violin Concerto

Chloe Hanslip (violin)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Whalley, R:

A Very Serious Game

Tachophobia

Ad Infinitum

Intoxicating Orchids

Three Worlds

Oliver Coates (cello), Caroline Balding (violin), John Barker (saxophone), Richard Walley (piano)

Vagenza Soloists, 10/10, James Stephenson & Clark Rundell

John Casken:

Infanta Marina

Rachael Pankhurst (cor anglais)

Ensemble 10.10, Clark Rundell

Après un Silence

Lesley Hatfield (violin), Andrew Ball (piano)

Firewhirl

Patricia Rozario (soprano)

Ensemble 10/10, Clark Rundell

Piano Quartet

Richard Casey (piano), David Routledge (violin), David Aspin (viola), Jennifer Langridge (cello)

Après un Silence (emsemble version)

Kyra Humphreys (violin)

RNCM New Ensemble, Clark Rundell

Salamandra

Andrew Ball & Juian Jacobson (pianos)

Amarantos

Ensemble 10/10, Clark Rundell

Distant Variations

Apollo Saxophone Quartet, RNCM Wind Orchestra

Grieg: Holberg Suite, Op. 40

Londonov: Scherzo - Toccata

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream: Scherzo

Moszkowski: Caprice espagnole, Op. 37

Trojan, V: Fairy Tales, a Concerto for Accordion

Vassiliev: Who's the puppet?

Ksenija Sidorova (accordion)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Clark Rundell

The first full-length CD devoted to the music of Liverpool-born Kenneth Hesketh.The title work Wunderkammer(konzert)is a three movement chamber concerto which reflects the character of the wunderkammer,or Cabinet of Curiosities that flourished between the 16th to 18th centuries.Graven Image is inspired by the medieval Memento Mori,a painting or sculpture which seeks to remind its owner of the brevity of life and At God Speeded Summer's End uses melodic ideas influenced by the structure of Dylan Thomas's poem Prologue.In Thomas own words:The first and last line rhyme;the second and last but one;and so on and so on.Why I ackrosticked myself like this,don't ask me.Kenneth Hesketh began composing whilst a chorister at Liverpool Cathedral,later studying at the Royal College of Music.He attended Tanglewood in 1995 where he studied with Henri Dutilleux and was subsequently awarded a scholarship from the Toepfer Foundation at the behest of Sir Simon Rattle.He is now a professor at the Royal College of Music and honorary professor at Liverpool University.

Emily Howard: Zátopek!

Kris Belligh (baritone), Susanne Dymott (contralto), Wendy Dawn Thompson (mezzo-soprano), John McMunn (tenor), Peter Brathwaite (baritone), Rosie Coad (soprano), Toby Girling (baritone)

Ensemble 10/10, Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir, Clark Rundell

Torke: Fiji

Torke: Tahiti

Ensemble 10/10, Clark Rundell

Music from 6 Continents (1994 Series): Visions from the North

John McLeod: The Godstad Ship

Gabriela Mistral: The Whispered Name

John McLeod: A Dramatic Landscape

Traditional: Lieder der Jugend

Jane Manning (soprano), Malgorzata Skoczewska (harp), Andrew Wilson (clarinet), Raimund Gilvan (tenor)

Polish Radio and Television Orchestra, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Krakow, Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra, John McLeod, Clark Rundell

David Jephcott:

Adagio for Strings

The Blue Nile

The Ludlow Air

Glencoe

The Egyptian Suite

The Prairie Whistler

The Refugees’ Lament

The Phantoms’ Waltz

Plain Sailing

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Percy Grainger’s death in 1961, we are re-issuing The Grainger Edition, Volumes 1 – 19, in a nineteen-disc box set

Susan Gritton (soprano), Della Jones, Pamela Helen Stephen (mezzo-sopranos), Martyn Hill, Mark Padmore, Mark Tucker (tenors), Johan Reuter, Stephen Varcoe (baritones), Tim Hugh (cello), John Lavender, Wayne Marshall, Penelope Thwaites, Geoffrey Tozer (piano)

Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chorus and Ensemble, Danish National Radio Choir, Joyful Company of Singers, RNCM Wind Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, BBC Philharmonic, Jesper Grove Jorgensen, Timothy Reynish, Clark Rundell, Richard Hickox

Lord, J:

To Notice Such Things

Evening Song

For Example

Air on a Blue String

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy

Jon Lord (piano) & Cormac Henry (flute)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Clark Rundell

Gregson, E:

Trumpet Concerto - Ole Edvard Antonsen (trumpet)

Saxophone Concerto - Nobuya Sugawa (saxophone)

Concerto for Piano and Wind - Nelson Goerner (piano)

BBC Philharmonic, Clark Rundell

Carpenter, G:

Ein Musikalisches Snookerspiel for wind octet

Da Capo for 6 players

Distanza for 23 players

Van Assendelft’s Vermeer for clavichord

After Braque for 20 playersr

Die Flimmerkiste for 11 players

Pamela Nash (clavichord)

Ensemble 10/10, Clark Rundell & Gary Carpenter

McNeff:

Tale of Peter Rabbit

Tale of Jemima Puddleduck

Tale of Squirrel Nutkin

Tale of Samuel Whiskers

Imelda Staunton (narrator/soloist)

BBC Concert Orchestra, Clark Rundell