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Track(s) taken from CDA67261/2

Spring sorrow

composer
1918
author of text

Christopher Maltman (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: September 1998
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Arthur Johnson
Engineered by Mike Clements & Mike Hatch
Release date: June 1999
Total duration: 1 minutes 45 seconds
 

Reviews

‘Perhaps these discs will at last bring the best of his songs back into live recital’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Three excellent young British singers share the treasures recorded here under the sage aegis of Graham Johnson. Lisa Milne's bright, keen soprano is lovely, John Mark Ainsley is a model of style and verbal clarity and young Christopher Maltman continues to show the promise that won him the Cardiff Lieder Prize in 1997’ (The Sunday Times)

‘A welcome, long overdue event. Excellent introduction to unduly neglected repertoire’ (Classic CD)

‘Ireland was a songsmith to rival the finest this country has produced, and Hyperion's generous anthology will hopefully encourage others to explore this rewarding and rapt repertoire’ (Hi-Fi News)
The hauntingly simple, perennially popular Spring sorrow marked a return for Ireland to the poetry of Rupert Brooke, an early victim of the war. (He died on a hospital ship in the Aegean in 1915.) While initially seeming to breathe relief at the arrivai of another spring, the ultimately bitter-sweet message is summed up in the final lines ' … the hawthorn hedge puts forth its buds / And my heart puts forth its pain'—perhaps intended by Ireland as an expression of hope viewed through the suffering of almost four years of war. It is said that the published ending was selected by a pupil of Ireland's to whom the composer played three possible conclusions. An early example of musical multiple choice.

from notes by Andrew Green © 1999

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