20th century English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams is perhaps best known for his symphonies and large-scale choral works however the essence of his music can also be found in his songs. His 1903 House of Life cyclefeatures 6 songs out of which the most famous one is the second Silent Noon. Composed before the rest of the cycle and first published separately this piece in E-flat major for V…

Par VAUGHAN WILLIAMS RALPH. Boldly reimagined and completed by Martin Yates, The Future, a substantial non finito draft of a major choral setting of words by Matthew Arnold, dates from 1908, immediately after Toward the Unknown Region, and in the crucial year of Vaughan Williams’s three-month tutelage with Ravel in Paris. Urgent ecological concerns – strikingly relevant today no less than in the V…

'Quartet In C Minor' is in four movements with a total duration of about 25 minutes. The opening Allegro is similar in style to Dvorak in its lyricism though there is a darker more brooding atmosphere towards the close. It is tempting to detect a hint of folk-song in the theme of the Andantino played by the viola but that may be stretching hindsight too far. The movement has a wistful melanch…

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 thoug…