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Recordings

Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty 

Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn

Although best known today as a composer of orchestral music, Hamilton Harty was also one of the most accomplished accompanists of his generation. It prompted, in turn, his increasing activity as an accomplished song writer.  The 23 featured songs include settings that speak eloquently of Harty’s abiding engagement with his Irish heritage and point, in the technical demands made of vocalist and pianist alike, to his innate understanding of the song form in all its concentrated, emotional power.
Favourite Harty songs such as Sea Wrack, The Blue Hills of Antrim and My Lagan Love are heard alongside settings of Walt Whitman (By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame), Thomas Campion (Come, O Come, My Heart’s Delight) and two texts by the composer himself (My Thoughts of You and Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis). Also included are two early, unpublished works for solo piano – Idyll and Arlequin and Columbine. Five songs are heard in new editions created from original manuscripts by British music authority Jeremy Dibble who also provides informative booklet notes.

“Somm has just issued three discs of British song, two featuring the mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge. She is steadily establishing herself in the front rank of British singers, as comfortable in the opera house as in a recital of modern song. One is of songs by Hamilton Harty, better remembered now as a leading conductor of the interwar period. Harty’s Irish roots are apparent in some but by no means all of his songs; a predominant wistfulness runs through them that Rudge’s delightfully vintage voice captures perfectly. For those discovering Harty the composer, the interest in the repertoire comes from what it says about his development: most of the songs are Edwardian in date and in flavour, but some are from immediately after the Great War and others from near the end of Harty’s life in the late 1930s, after he was physically unable to continue conducting.” The Telegraph

“Ms Rudge’s singing is compelling and the piano part is highly evocative… This is a highly enjoyable recital. Hamilton Harty’s songs deserve to be much better known and if a primary function of a recording is to make people aware of unfamiliar music then this CD most certainly does its job. The music could scarcely wish for better advocacy. Kathryn Rudge’s singing and Christopher Glynn’s pianism give consistent pleasure and it seems to me that they respond to the mood of each individual piece with sensitivity and understanding.”  MusicWeb International 

“Harty’s piano parts are richly imaginative and on this disc Rudge and Glynn make a fine pairing, the one spinning out a series of shapely lines and the other providing richly texture support and finely emotional partnering. And I must commend Rudge’s diction, you hardly need the printed words. This selection from Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn treats the songs with the care and attention they deserve, and shows the songs to be well worth exploring.”  Planet Hugill 

“Sea Wrack” (track 1) is an impressive opening: based upon a poem by writer Moira O’Neill (1864-1955), who herself resided in Ireland, it describes two men at sea harvesting seaweed who presumably encounter an accident, leaving one of them “beneath the salt sea” and the other alone on the shore. The duo does very well in capturing the poem’s dramatic arc: Rudge’s voice, resonant and declamatory, holds up to the programmatic accompaniment figures….Though the death is only implied in the conclusion of the poem, we can experience its true poignancy in the way Rudge sings the final words… This album is a solid output from Rudge and Glynn and allows listeners to appreciate the vibrancy of Harty’s works.”  The Classical Review  

Available here: https://somm-recordings.com/recording/songs-by-sir-hamilton-harty/

 


Elgar: Sea Pictures & The Music Makers - RLPO/Vasily Petrenko 

“I was much taken with Kathryn Rudge’s contribution to Barry Wordsworth’s BBC CO anthology of orchestral songs by Elgar (Somm, 11/18), and this glowingly idiomatic account of Sea Pictures can only enhance her growing reputation. With her sensitivity to the text, freshness of timbre and secure vocal technique, she once again proves herself a strongly intuitive interpreter of this repertoire. Rudge is also fortunate to receive superbly attentive support from Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO, who are marvellously alive to the myriad textural subtleties and absorbing motivic interplay throughout Elgar’s illimitably rewarding orchestral canvas.”

“Rudge, too, covers herself in glory, not least in the incomparably tender setting of ‘But on one man’s soul it has broken / A light that doth not depart’ (track 10, from 1’16”), where the appearance of ‘Nimrod’ pays compassionate tribute to Elgar’s dear friend, August Jaeger. And towards the end (from 1’01” in track 13, to be precise), how affecting is Rudge’s refulgent delivery of ‘Bring us hither your sun and your summers / And renew our world as of yore; / You shall teach us your song’s new numbers’, not to mention her closing phrase ‘Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers / And a singer who sings no more’, where Elgar weaves in one final, devastatingly poignant quotation of ‘Novissima hora est’ from Gerontius. No question about it, Petrenko’s abundantly communicative conception demands to be heard..A most enticing release, in sum, which all Elgarians should seek out without delay.”  GRAMOPHONE  

“Liverpudlian mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge sings the solo part with ripe-toned plenitude and also delivers a richly nuanced account of Sea Pictures, avoiding any hint of victorian unctuousness. Petrenko’s accompaniments are both flowingly purposeful and attentive to Rudge’s phrasing with characterful playing with the orchestra. ‘The Swimmer’ shows all the performers at their best, in a driving, wind-whipped interpretation.”  BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE  

Available to listen to/purchase here:  

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/4Tj1RAKGvLinQVVZRfR6O7…
Apple Music https://music.apple.com/…/elgar-sea-pictures-the…/1508002132
Presto Classical https://www.prestomusic.com/…/8738516–elgar-sea-pictures-t…


Parry: Judith - London Mozart Players/William Vann

 Sarah Fox (soprano), Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano), Toby Spence (tenor), Henry Waddington (bass-baritone)

Crouch End Festival Chorus, London Mozart Players, William Vann

“Kathryn Rudge possesses that wonderfully rich mezzo sound which is a mainstay of English oratorios, and brings maternal warmth to Meshullemeth.”  Limelight 

“Every aspect of this performance sounds like a labour of love. Rudge’s soaring, expressive singing as Meshullemeth gives the piece its real heart, and she’s accompanied with intense sympathy by the conductor William Vann, who avoids any suggestion of bombast or sentimentality, and builds Parry’s great paragraphs so eloquently and with such assurance that you’d think he’d been conducting this music all his life.”

“Parry weaves yard upon yard of  golden, lyrical music, glowing with clarinets and horns, and it’s in this vein that he strikes upon the score’s noblest melodic inspiration, the ballad ‘Long Since in Egypt’s plenteous land’, whose melody later became the hymn tune Repton…After hearing it sung with radiant tenderness by Kathryn Rudge, with Parry’s gentle nostalgic orchestral ritornellos framing each verse, you’ll never take it for granted again.”  GRAMOPHONE 

Available here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/works/313721–parry-judith/browse


 

Elgar Orchestral Songs "The Hills of Dreamland" - BBCCO/Barry Wordsworth

Available from Somm "Orchestral songs by Sir Edward Elgar (on double slimline selling as a single disc), performed by two of today’s most exciting young singers – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and baritone Henk Neven – accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The Hills of Dreamland takes its title from a line in Elgar’s well-known setting, beautifully still and beseeching, of Arthur L Salmon’s Pleading.”

“There are stirring moments as in the impassioned Two Songs of Op.60 performed by Rudge. Rudge impresses in the Pomp and Circumstance strains of ‘The Kingsway’ The Grania and Diarmid incidental Music is powerful.” 

“One of the finest songs is Pleading a setting of Arthur L. Salmon which contains the line The Hills of Dreamland which is used as the title of the album. Here Katherine Rudge is in marvellous form, as she is throughout the recording, displaying her lovely tone with notable ease of projection making every note count…Included also is Elgar’s complete incidental music for a 1901 Gaiety Theatre, Dublin staging of George Moore and William Butler Yeats’s play Grania and Diarmid one of the most celebrated tragic tales of great Celtic Heroic legends. It’s an agreeable score beautifully performed by BBC Concert Orchestra with Rudge excelling in the song There are seven that pull the thread.” Music Web International  

“Kathryn Rudge’s focused but full-bodied mezzo brings clarity and power to a superbly atmospheric account of The Wind at Dawn (1888, orchestrated in 1912), and the two Op.10 songs (The Torch and The River, both settings of Elgar’s own stylised verses) are just as memorable. … Wordsworth and the orchestra come into their own in the Grania and Diarmid music, bringing an almost Sibelius-like evocation of nature and ancient times to the Incidental Music and Funeral March, and then accompanying Kathryn Rudge matchlessly in the mysterious song ‘There are seven that pull the thread’… What makes it even more attractive, however, is the generous addition of a bonus featuring soprano Nathalie de Montmollin accompanied by Barry Collett in a selection of Elgar’s songs for voice and piano. … Like so many of Somm’s previous Elgar releases, this generous collection of songs (two discs priced as one) is essential listening for Elgarians everywhere, enhanced by excellent recordings (the piano songs performed live at Southampton’s Turner Sims Concert Hall), and fine notes from Barry Collett and fellow Elgar expert Andrew Neill. An outstanding addition to the catalogue.” EUROPADISC REVIEW 

Available from Somm 

 

 


Songs by Eric Coates - Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn

“Rudge’s second disc is a revelation – songs by Eric Coates, accompanied (as on the Harty disc) by the pianist Christopher Glynn…Coates did not raid his shelves of English poetry for words, but worked with various lyricists to construct ballads of the sort typically popular between the wars. He wrote songs to show off the voice of the singer, and Rudge is more than equal to that challenge.” The Telegraph  – Simon Heffer

Songs by Eric Coates - Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn

“Rudge’s second disc is a revelation – songs by Eric Coates, accompanied (as on the Harty disc) by the pianist Christopher Glynn…Coates did not raid his shelves of English poetry for words, but worked with various lyricists to construct ballads of the sort typically popular between the wars. He wrote songs to show off the voice of the singer, and Rudge is more than equal to that challenge.” The Telegraph  – Simon Heffer

“Full marks to Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn for this, the most comprehensive collection of Coates songs ever presented on a single disc – 28 titles, including almost all the best-known ones.” GRAMOPHONE

“Once upon a time the songs of Eric Coates were sung and recorded by the world’s most prominent artists…which is one reason why this interesting new anthology is welcome. Another is the warm, empathetic advocacy of…Kathryn Rudge. Her creamy, generous mezzo-soprano affectionately cossets the languorous melody of ‘In a Sleepy Lagoon’ and caresses the delicate ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’. In songs which seem perilously sentimental…Rudge is deft at dialing back the whymsy, and distilling genuine emotion. … The ‘Four Old English Songs’…show Coates to be considerably more than a writer of facile parlour melodies. Rudge’s vibrant interpretation makes a persuasive case for them, and Christopher Glynn’s fluid accompaniment is a model of supportive sensitivity. … A valuable issue.”  —Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine Performance:  Recording

“Full marks to Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn for this, the most comprehensive collection of Coates songs ever presented on a single disc – 28 titles, including almost all the best-known ones.” GRAMOPHONE

“Once upon a time the songs of Eric Coates were sung and recorded by the world’s most prominent artists…which is one reason why this interesting new anthology is welcome. Another is the warm, empathetic advocacy of…Kathryn Rudge. Her creamy, generous mezzo-soprano affectionately cossets the languorous melody of ‘In a Sleepy Lagoon’ and caresses the delicate ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’. In songs which seem perilously sentimental…Rudge is deft at dialing back the whymsy, and distilling genuine emotion. … The ‘Four Old English Songs’…show Coates to be considerably more than a writer of facile parlour melodies. Rudge’s vibrant interpretation makes a persuasive case for them, and Christopher Glynn’s fluid accompaniment is a model of supportive sensitivity. … A valuable issue.”  —Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine Performance:  Recording

Available to purchase here: Somm Records 


Songs by Donald Swann - Christopher Glynn
Kathryn features in this collaborative recording of Donald Swann songs with distinguished singers Soprano Felicity Lott, Baritone Roderick Williams and Tenor John Mark Ainsley. The project was the brainchild of pianist Christopher Glynn who liaised with baritone Leon Berger, Swann’s Archivist.   The CD was released on the Hyperion label on 30th June 2017.Donald Swann will always be remembered as the musical half of the comic duo Flanders & Swann. This two-disc collection celebrates the unique talents of a gifted songwriter.The recording was made in January 2016 at Potton Hall in Suffolk with Producer Jeremy Hayes and Engineered by Ben Connelian.
“Dame Felicity Lott, baritone Roderick Williams, tenor John Mark Ainsley and mezzo soprano Kathryn Rudge – are perfect for this light material, aided by Christopher Glynn’s attentive piano.” Limelight 
“If there’s a revelation…it’s the newcomer of the singing quartet: Rudge, a rising mezzo-soprano with rich tone…” Neil Fisher, The Times
 “The performances by this star cast of singers are impeccable. Great Stuff”    BBC Music Magazine
“The collection celebrates the unique talents of a gifted songwriter whose settings of poets from Burns to Betjeman are ripe for revival. The quartet of distinguished singers is luxury casting” Hyperion Records 
“This is a continually fascinating and diverse selection of 46 songs (from over 600) which recitalists and Lieder lovers will lap up, for there are many buried treasures here’ Gramophone  

GARY CARPENTER SET - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Clark Rundell

Gary Carpenter – one of Britain’s most diverse and engaging composers, whose work’s span: dance, film, opera, musicals and concert music, releases a highly anticipated CD of his orchestral works.

“These are all impressive and rewarding pieces, heard in excellent performances and first-class sound, yet are overshadowed by Love’s Eternity (initiated in 1992 and since revised), a quite wonderful set of songs that owe in one way or another to Roberts Browning and Schumann and to Heinrich Heine, and that really touch the heart and send shivers of appreciation down the listener’s spine. If I were asked to ‘guess the composer’ I would have come up with Ned Rorem, André Previn and Leonard Bernstein as possibilities – there is something outgoingly American here (the final number, ‘Reunion’, had me thinking it would find a place in Bernstein’s Candide). Carpenter has produced something special here, deeply affecting settings (as he says, as much to do with Death as the cited Love) and in which Kathryn Rudge excels. Sometimes, listening to music can be so devastating on the emotions. There is beauty and solace here.” Classical Source 

“Equally affecting is the song cycle Love’s Eternity, which was originally written for a 1992 radio monologue about the demise of the poet Robert Browning and features five settings of love poems by his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Carpenter orchestrated the original piano versions for the golden-voiced Liverpool-born mezzo Kathryn Rudge especially for this disc; she performs them here with her local orchestra. I last heard this intelligent, probing singer on a fine Hyperion collection of songs by Donald Swann. Her communication of the English language is exemplary–Barrett Browning’s words aren’t exactly tailored for the modern singer – and Carpenter is fortunate indeed to have found another perfect advocate for his art.”  Hanlon 


 

Love's Old Sweet Song - Kathryn Rudge and James Baillieu

A recital disc of songs and ballads in English, written between 1823 and 1945 by British composers whose lives were affected by the great war. 

“Whether or not you have any interest in English song, if you like exceptionally thoughtful music-making, this album is for you. Rudge’s voice is golden, rich, and even; her diction crystal clear, and her phrasing superb. Baillieu’s playing is warm and supportive. Outstanding performances of every piece; I loved every minute of it.” American Record Guide 

“A whole range of 20th century English song from Novello to Gurney in a finely crafted debut…Kathryn Rudge has a lovely warm yet focussed mezzo-soprano voice and she sings with a combination of line and superb diction.” Robert Hugill  Amongst the selection of songs are nostalgic gems by Eric Coates, Alan Murray, Ivor Novello (We’ll Gather Lilacs) and Haydn Wood’s famous songs of the First World War, Roses of Picardy.  Also included are Roger Quilter’s beautifully melodic Seven Elizabethan Songs and some passionate songs by Edward Elgar, written prior to the outbreak of WW1. Works composed by serving WW1 soldiers include: William Denis Brown (To Gratiana Dancing and Singing) and Ivor Gurney’s haunting compositions from the trenches, Severn Meadows and By a Bierside.

Kathryn writes “The sentiments of these pieces still resonate strongly in our lives today, never more so than when we remember them in relation to the events of the past”. These songs are often dismissed in modern times as being simply ‘sentimental’ and the stuff of Victorian and Edwardian drawing rooms, but at the heart of the music is something of value.


 

MICHAEL NYMAN

Symphony No.1: Hillsborough Memorial - RLPO/Josep Vicent

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Josep Vincent conductor
Kathryn Rudge mezzo-soprano
Liverpool Philharmonc Youth Orchestra

Commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial 2014, in partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Liverpool Cathedral

World Premiere Performance September 5 2014 at Liverpool Cathedral Michael Nyman Symphony No.11: Hillsborough Memorial pays tribute to the 96 Liverpool football fans who lost their lives in 1989 and for whom Justice has only recently been served.

“Nyman sets the names of the 96 victims to music in the opening movement, ‘The Singing of the Names’, powerfully performed by Liverpool born mezzo-soprano Kathyrn Rudge. The names of the 96 will be included within the booklet notes, along with Michael’s own thoughts on the events leading up to the writing of the music. Josep Vicent conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in this emotionally charged recording.”