Settings for Nonet

These time-honoured words so suitable for the musical adornment of a service of marriage or blessing receive a new and very moving encounter with music through the inspiration of Benjamin Woodgates. His five-part a cappella setting is in a simple three-part form rightly illustrating the tempestuous waters that cannot quench love in a more strenuous middle section. The overall impression however is of the stillness and solemnity of a special moment of ceremony by definition unique and unrepeatable which will nonetheless be renewed in spirit with every performance of this glowing and rapturous setting.

In Mournful Mood-The Piano music of Jean Sibelius ranks among the greatest of Finnish music and his 1924 set Five Characteristic Impressions demonstrates his importance particularly in the field of Tone Poems. The fifth piece of this set In Mournful Mood is a slower piece than the others but is moving nonetheless. It is an impressionist piece that expresses imagery of reality with fabulous tonality and colour.

Pour Cor Anglais (Ou Flûte Ou Clarinette Ou Alto) Violon Et Violoncelle-Rarely has a musical work been better characterized by its subtitle than Nicolas Bacri’s Lyric Interlude: ‘A Study in Pastoral Style’. When in 2008 the composer received the commission for a piece with English Horn from Cecilia Benner patron of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit he immediately thought of the duo between this instrument and the Oboe that Berlioz in the Symphonie fantastique placed at the beginning of the ‘Scène aux champs’ making suddenly appear a nocturnal country landscape where two shepherds carry on a dialogue on their pipes. First performed in March 2009 atone of the Scarab Club Concerts in Detroit the Lyric Interlude for English Horn Violin and Cello (Op.110a) nonetheless proclaims another tradition: that of British pastoralism illustrated by the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) the 50th anniversary of his death having just been celebrated. This score pays him homage of rare sensitivity: set off by refined counterpoint the undulating lament of the beginning rhythmically supple evokes the waving wheat as does Vaughan Williams in the opening undulation of his Symphony No.3. The lyrical effusion briefly interrupted by a scherzo in 6/8 again pours out making the work evolve towards a slow ecstatic atmosphere close to the last of the English composer’s Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes. Far from bucolic postcard clichés and servile imitation this Lyric Interlude opens the doors to a realm where pure beauty reigns. The composer also wrote another version of this work for English Horn (or Flute Clarinet or Viola) and Piano Op.110b (AL 30 750)