Hyperion Records

Granville Bantock was a conductor and educator who wrote a sizable quantity of music in various forms, much of it showing his fascination for things Eastern and Celtic. I discovered this haunting song through the tenor Robert White with whom I have played through masses of vocal repertoire after delicious bowls of pasta at his New York apartment. The printed score has the following words of explanation: ‘The refrain of this song was actually used recently on an Hebridean island by a singer who thereby attracted a quantity of seals to gather round and listen intently to the singing’.

from notes by Stephen Hough © 2002