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Track(s) taken from SIGCD325

The Aviary

composer
1966

NYCoS National Girls Choir, Philip Moore (piano), Andrew West (piano), Christopher Bell (conductor)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
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Recording details: April 2012
Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, Scotland
Produced by Alexander Van Ingen
Engineered by Mike Hatch & Richard Bland
Release date: March 2013
Total duration: 8 minutes 20 seconds
 

Reviews

'Like his one-time mentor Benjamin Britten, Bennett showed a genuine aptitude for writing music for children, particularly vocal works. Christopher Bell and the NYCoS National Girls Choir offer a delightful and varied programme of this corner of Bennett's output. In addition to the amusing Letters to Lindbergh, the album includes The Ballad of Sweet William, The Aviary, Dream-Songs, A Song at Evening and Four American Carols. All receive idiomatic readings from the clean, incisive voices of this superb Scottish choir, and throughout one marvels at Bennett's gift for distinctive yet always memorable melody. [This album] can be warmly recommended' (Choir & Organ)

'Produced before Bennett's death, this forms a moving tribute to a masterly composer. The immediately attractive opener, Letters to Lindbergh, quirkily imagines correspondence the aviator might have received from, among others, Pluto (the cartoon dog!) and the Titanic. His gift for soaring, exciting and grateful vocal lines is shown time and time again, and this young Scottish group repay him in spades. Warmly recommended' (Classical Music Magazine)

The cycle of five poems about birds entitled The Aviary, by authors such as John Clare and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is an early work, composed in 1965. It has become one of Bennett’s best-established lyric sequences through its ideally singable, melodically direct idiom, which has made it (and also its companion cycle from the same period, Insect World) a favourite with amateur choirs.

from notes by Malcolm MacDonald © 2012

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