From the
British Music Society
Songs of Rutland Boughton
Released 01/09/2005
Louise Mott, mezzo-soprano
Alexander Taylor piano
BMS431CD
Rutland Boughton (1878 – 1960)
Four songs Op.24 (Edward Carpenter)
Five Celtic Love Songs (Fiona Macleod)
Songs of Womanhood Op.33 (Christina Walshe)
Three songs Op.39 (Edward Carpenter)
Symbol Songs (Mary Richardson)
Sweet Ass (Eleanor Farjeon)
“Expressive performances of neglected but nonetheless attractive songs,”
John Steane, Gramophone
“… the chance to hear (Boughton’s songs) is welcome. Bravo to the British Music Society for giving us the opportunity”
Piers Burton-Page, International Record Review
From Hyperion Records
“I believe that Boughton’s works will eventually be regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements in the story of our music”
Charles Kennedy Scott, 1915
“The Immortal Hour is a work of genius”
Edward Elgar, 1924
“….The Immortal Hour enchants me. The whole thing gripped me”
Dame Ethel Smyth, 1922
“Now that Elgar is gone, you have the only original personal English style on the market…I find that I have acquired a great taste for it”
George Bernard Shaw, 1934
“I remember vividly how Boughton made his characters live, and the masterly effect of the choral writing”
Sir Arthur Bliss on The Immortal Hour, 1949
“In any other country, such a work as The Immortal Hour would have been in the repertoire years ago”
Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1949
Boughton: Aylesbury Games & other works
Emily Beynon (flute), New London Orchestra, Ronald Corp (conductor)
CDA67185
‘Vibrant performances’
The Daily Telegraph
‘A welcome release. Beynon is enchanting in the Flute Concerto, while the Aylesbury Games Suite and Concerto for String Orchestra are lovely repertoire revivals’
Classic FM Magazine
Boughton: Bethlehem
Holst Singers, City of London Sinfonia, Alan G Melville (conductor)
CDA66690
‘A charming, beautiful, very moving music drama’
American Record Guide
Boughton: String Quartets & Oboe Quartet No 1
Sarah Francis (oboe), The Rasumovsky Quartet
CDA66936
‘Performances throughout are shapely and sensitive, the production is refined and the balance truthful. Fans of this colourful figure should acquire forthwith’
Gramophone
‘There is some gorgeous music here. All these works contain a fund of attractive melody. Music as directly appealing as this warrants a place in any collection of British music’
Fanfare, USA
Boughton: Symphony No 3 & Oboe Concerto No 1
Sarah Francis (oboe), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley (conductor)
CDH55019
‘Once again our gratitude to Hyperion, and to Vernon Handley, for recording a hidden treasure’
Gramophone
‘Sumptuous’
Hi-Fi News
Boughton: The Immortal Hour
The Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, English Chamber Orchestra, Alan G Melville (conductor)
CDD22040
‘This superb complete recording was a salutary shock: the opera is a kind of masterpiece, bleak, passionate and inspired … Enthusiastically recommended’
BBC Music Magazine Top 1000 CDs Guide
‘Vividly atmospheric. Quite exceptional on all counts … I was quite bowled over [by] this delightful opera’
Gramophone
‘This delightful opera is not to be missed’
The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs
‘Not to be missed’
Classic CD
Music for oboe
Sarah Francis (oboe), Peter Dickinson (piano), The Rasumovsky Quartet
CDH55008
‘A very attractive reissue’’
Classic CD
From OBOE CLASSICS
Rutland Boughton ‘for Joyance’
The complete oboe chamber music
Mark Baigent (oboe) and chamber ensemble
CC2034
Rutland Boughton was one of the foremost composers of the ‘English Renaissance’ between the two world wars, and his daughter Joyance (Joy) was the oboist for whom Britten wrote his Six Metamorphoses. These pieces are imbued with a father’s love.
The allegro from Boughton’s first Oboe Quartet demonstrates a folk-influenced ebulliance, and the andante from his second a beguiling melodic flair.
Elsewhere, The passing of the Faerie shows a wicked sense of humour, and in the dreamy fantasie of Portrait there is a wooden flute played by Eva Cabellero in these historically informed performances (Mark Baigent’s Lorée oboe dates from 1901).
‘Put on the kettle, put your feet up, cut yourself a slice of fruit cake, and relax with music that cries out to be a friend to everyone.’
Adrian Vernon Fish, radio host
From Dutton Vocalian
The Queen of Cornwall
2 CD Set – Including a 32-page booklet with the full libretto
CDLX7256
‘… a strong cast … this is an admirable full-blooded performance’
Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine, September 2011
‘A Tristan opera by a composer who aspired to be an English Wagner’
Editor’s Choice, Gramophone, September 2011
‘… clothed in gorgeous orchestration …’
Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone, September 2011
‘Ronald Corp … brings full-blooded playing from the orchestra as is fitting but also draws quieter response in intimate scenes. Collectors of English music should be interested in this release’
International Record Review, January 2011
Edgar Bainton Symphony No.3 and Rutland Boughton Symphony No. 1 ‘Oliver Cromwell’
CDLX7185
Edgar Bainton Symphony no.3 in C minor
Rutland Boughton Symphony no.1 Oliver Cromwell
RWRoderick Williams (baritone)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Vernon Handley CBE (conductor)
Cynthia Fleming (leader)
Recorded at The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford
12-13 July 2006
A revelation for all lovers of the English symphony: Vernon Handley conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra works his magic on two tremendous but until now unknown scores, in an unexpected coupling. Edgar Bainton’s glorious Third Symphony, his last work, from 1956, was written when he was living in Australia, and Rutland Boughton’s First Symphony, from 1905, a swaggering Edwardian celebration of Oliver Cromwell, is crowned by baritone Roderick Williams’s fervent projection of Cromwell’s prayer at the end. We perhaps do not link the names of Edgar Bainton and Rutland Boughton, yet they were friends and contemporaries when Boughton was trying to launch his opera scheme at Glastonbury at the beginning of WWI, and their music, early and late, makes a uniquely rewarding programme.
‘… another substantial coupling from Dutton, on which Vernon Handley and the BBC Concert Orchestra resuscitate two symphonies by Edgar Bainton and Rutland Boughton. The latter’s First (a red-blooded, somewhat Lisztian character portrait of Oliver Cromwell) dates from 1905 and its finale incorporates a sincerely felt setting for baritone (here the eloquent Roderick Williams) of Cromwell’s last prayer. Bainton’s Third Symphony (1956) … strikes me as a find: a 42-minute journey of frequently piercing beauty and slumbering power, waymarked by a haunting pentatonic motif. With first rate orchestral playing and Handley in his element, Anglophiles and adventurous collectors alike needn’t tarry.’
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, June 2007
Rutland Boughton & Edgar Bainton – Orchestral Tone Poems
CDLLX7262
Rutland Boughton
Love and Spring op.23 (1906)
Troilus & Cressida (Thou & I) op.17 (1902)
A Summer Night op.5 (1899 rev. 1903)
Edgar Bainton
Paracelsus op.8 (1904 rev. 1913)
Pompilia op.11 (1903)
Prometheus op.19 (1909)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates (conductor)
World premiere recordings
Recorded at RSNO Centre, Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, 1-2 June 2010
‘Martin Yates … gives a clear sense of the shape of each work … and the first-rate playing of the RSNO. It’s difficult to imagine a more spirited set of revivals.’
Calum MacDonald, International Record Review, January 2011
Sea Fever Songs by Roderick Williams
CDLX7199
Boughton
Fair is Our Lot (Rudyard Kipling)
The Coastwise Lights (Our Brows are Bound with Spindrift’) (Rudyard Kipling)
The Price of Admiralty (We Have Fed Our Seas’) (Rudyard Kipling)
‘… a labour of love duly rewarded in performance.’
Piers Burton-Page, International Record Review, January 2008
From Amazon
Rutland Boughton: Symphony No.2 ‘Deirdre’ A Celtic Symphony and Symphony No.3
Order the book
‘Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals’
(ISBN 978-0-992-71730-9)
In addition to Rutland’s music one can purchase the Michael Hurd’s Biography ‘Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals’ 2014. First issued in 2003 and since updated in 2014 with more photos.
If you would like to purchase a copy please contact the trust. The price of the biography is £25 plus postage and packaging per copy.