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Track(s) taken from CDA67065

In Flanders

First line:
I'm homesick for my hills again
composer
arranger
orchestrated 1917
author of text

Christopher Maltman (baritone), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (conductor)
Recording details: August 1998
City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow, Scotland
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Philip Hobbs
Release date: March 1999
Total duration: 3 minutes 1 seconds
 

Other recordings available for download

Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), Aurora Orchestra, Nigel Short (conductor)

Reviews

‘Maltman captures the almost unbearably poignant feeling of these [Gurney] songs’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Singing of distinction and a programme of remarkable strength. Hyperion is on to a winner here’ (Yorkshire Post)
With the coming of the war, the Royal College of Music – as other institutions – emptied of many of its students as they volunteered for active service. Hubert Parry, the director of the college, worried greatly for his students, and felt any losses very deeply. He tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Vaughan Williams from volunteering; and in April 1917 he wrote to Howells, ‘Gurney’s case I feel to be quite a special martyrdom. His mind is so full of thoughts and feelings far removed from crude barbarities that it seems almost monstrous. But war is monstrous and we have to take it as far as we can from the collective point of view.’

It was only whilst serving in France that Gurney began to write poetry in earnest, serving his apprenticeship in the trenches and behind the lines. It was more difficult to write music, but he did compose a handful of songs. Amongst these, In Flanders—a setting of a poem by his boyhood friend Will Harvey—is an expression of homesickness, composed in January 1917. Both In Flanders and By a bierside were orchestrated by Howells at the behest of Sir Charles Stanford, for performance at the Royal College of Music.

from notes by Philip Lancaster © 2018

Other albums featuring this work

A walk with Ivor Gurney
Studio Master: SIGCD5572CDs Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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