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Track(s) taken from SIGCD325

Dream-Songs

composer
1986
author of text

NYCoS National Girls Choir, Philip Moore (piano), Andrew West (piano), Christopher Bell (conductor)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
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: 9 minutes 3 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)

Well known is the short cycle of Dream-Songs from 1986 for unison high voices (or solo voice) and piano. Bennett seems to have an imaginative affinity with the atmospheric verses of Walter de la Mare, which he clothes in this cycle with strikingly appropriate and evocative music.

from notes by Malcolm MacDonald © 2012

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