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Butterworth – Orchestral Works

Composers
Genres
Performers
Orchestras / Ensembles
Instruments
Conductors
Label
Catalogue numberBIS-2195 SACD
Release date2016-05-10
Discs1
Orig. sample rate96000Hz
Total time75:32

Produced in association with BBC Radio 3 and BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Main sponsor: The Western Front Association


When George Butterworth joined the army in 1914, his most recent works included the song cycle Six Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ as well as the Rhapsody ‘A Shropshire Lad’, which he called 'an orchestral epilogue' to his settings of A. E. Housman’s poems. The Rhapsody has since been described as 'one of the greatest of all English orchestral works’ and when Butterworth left England to fight in the First World War, he was seen as one of the bright hopes of British music – a hope that in August 1916 was extinguished in the trenches at the Somme. When Butterworth joined up he stopped composing and also destroyed several manuscripts that he felt were inferior. An exception was an Orchestral Fantasia which he had started just before the war broke out: a 92-bar full score manuscript lasting some three-and-a-half minutes has been preserved. On the first page Butterworth wrote ‘see short score’ which implies that the work may have been completed – but if so, the score in question has been lost. The composer and conductor Kriss Russman has therefore taken up where the manuscript breaks off, adding some 5 minutes of music through a process which he describes in his liner notes as 'developing Butterworth’s original ideas and combining them with additional material derived from an analysis of his other music.' Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Russman himself, the world première recording of the Fantasia closes the present disc which also includes some of Butterworth's best loved pieces, such as The Banks of Green Willow. Russman has also made orchestral arrangements of the five-movement Suite for String Quartette and the Six Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’, both of which are recorded here for the first time. The soloist in the song cycle, and in the three songs that make up Love Blows as the Wind Blows, is James Rutherford, who has previously recorded the Shropshire Lad songs for BIS in the original version with piano accompaniment.
 
  • STUDIO QUALITY
    File formats included in STUDIO QUALITY
    • FLAC 24-bit Stereo
    • FLAC 24-bit Surround 5.0
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
  • CD QUALITY | MP3
    File formats included in CD QUALITY | MP3
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
$ 17.59
 
Extra material for download
 
 
  Composer: Butterworth, George
01 Idyll: The Banks of Green Willow 05:54 $ 1.42 USD
 
  Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad 13:12
02 I. Loveliest of trees 02:44 $ 0.66 USD
03 II. When I was one-and-twenty 01:21 $ 0.32 USD
04 III. Look not in my eyes 02:10 $ 0.52 USD
05 IV. Think no more, lad 01:18 $ 0.31 USD
06 V. The lads in their hundreds 02:05 $ 0.50 USD
07 VI. Is my team ploughing? 03:34 $ 0.86 USD
 
08 Rhapsody A Shropshire Lad 09:54 $ 2.38 USD
 
  Two English Idylls 08:44
09 I. Allegro scherzando 04:22 $ 1.05 USD
10 II. Adagio non troppo 04:22 $ 1.05 USD
 
  Suite for String Quartette 18:09
11 I. Andante con moto, molto espressivo 03:36 $ 0.86 USD
12 II. Scherzando - non allegro 00:54 $ 0.22 USD
13 III. Allegro molto 04:24 $ 1.06 USD
14 IV. Molto moderato ed espressivo 04:39 $ 1.12 USD
15 V. Moderato 04:36 $ 1.10 USD
 
  Love Blows as the Wind Blows 08:48
16 I. In the year that’s come and gone 03:04 $ 0.74 USD
17 II. Life in her creaking shoes 01:57 $ 0.47 USD
18 III. On the way to Kew 03:47 $ 0.91 USD
 
19 Orchestral Fantasia 08:36 $ 2.06 USD
 
  Album total 75:32
ComposerButterworth, George
ConductorRussman, Kriss
OrchestraBBC National Orchestra of Wales
BaritoneRutherford, James

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