Through a Glass: Songs by Martin Bussey

Through a Glass: Songs by Martin Bussey

£12.99
Total playing time [68:25]

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Marcus Farnsworth (baritone)
James Baillieu (piano)
Thomas Kemp (conductor)

Following on from the critical success of his recording of Gerald Finzi's By Footpath and Stile, rising star baritone Marcus Farnsworth here makes his solo album debut for Resonus.

Presenting an instantly striking and diverse collection of world premiere recordings of song by the contemporary composer Martin Bussey, Farnsworth is joined by the renowned young pianist James Baillieu for the A.E. Housman cycle Blue Remembered Hills (with texts from A Shropshire Lad), the Two Hardy Songs, and the evocative and characterful Garden Songs. Also included are the substantial song cycle for voice and small ensemble Through a Glass, Darkly - directed by the acclaimed conductor Thomas Kemp - and the beautiful stand-alone song for baritone and violin, The Windhover.

Album Booklet (PDF)

Tracklist

Blue Remembered Hills
1. Reveille
2. Because I liked you better
3. Into my heart
4. Oh when I was in love with you
5. White in the moon

Through a Glass, Darkly
6. The Mask
7. Never seek to tell
8. Young and gold haired
9. The Secret Sits
10. Dreams
11. Deep in my soul
12. Lay your sleeping head

Two Hardy Songs
13. Drummer Hodge
14. In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’

15. The Windhover

Garden Songs
16. The Garden
17. Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment
18. Planting Trees
19. Mr Hancock’s Letter

All world premiere recordings

“

'Educationist and musician Martin Bussey (b1958) is a chameleon composer, able effortlessly to adapt his style to the contours of his chosen poetry: warmly lyrical for Housman’s Blue Remembered Hills; interestingly angular for Yeats’s The Mask; silky soft for Auden’s Lay Your Sleeping Head [...] beautifully sung by this most mellifluous of baritones'

- The Observer

'Educationist and musician Martin Bussey (b1958) is a chameleon composer, able effortlessly to adapt his style to the contours of his chosen poetry: warmly lyrical for Housman’s Blue Remembered Hills; interestingly angular for Yeats’s The Mask; silky soft for Auden’s Lay Your Sleeping Head [...] beautifully sung by this most mellifluous of baritones'
The Observer

'The music is in the mainstream of 20th-century English song [...] Through a Glass is often as impassioned as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem I enjoyed hearing it: the performances must be regarded as authoritative and the recording is very good'
MusicWeb International

Credits
© 2014 Resonus Limited
Ⓟ 2014 Resonus Limited
Catalogue No. RES10137
Producer, engineer & editor: Adam Binks
EAN: 5060262790410
Cover image: Mt Cotton, Morning Fog by Johnny Worthington (flickr.com – Creative Commons)