Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works

Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works

Regular price £12.99
Total playing time [59:48]

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Berkeley Ensemble

Following their acclaimed debut recording, the Berkeley Ensemble returns with a programme of chamber works by the British composer Lennox Berkeley, one of the two composers (father and son) after whom the group gets its name.

Featuring a number of world premiere recordings, the ensemble presents a selection of works that covers most of Berkeley’s creative life from the early Francophile clarinet Sonatine written in Paris while a student of Nadia Boulanger to the inventive Introduction and Allegro for double bass and piano. Also featured are the Three solo pieces for viola and the large scale String Trio Op. 19 and Sextet, Op. 47 for clarinet, horn and string quartet, and the emotive miniature In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky.

Album Booklet (PDF)

Tracklist

1. Pièce (1929) *
pour flûte, clarinette & basson

Sextet, Op. 47
for clarinet, horn & string quartet
2. Allegro moderato
3. Lento
4. Allegro

5. In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky (1971) *
Canon for string quartet

6. Introduction and Allegro (1971)
for double bass & piano

String Trio, Op.19
7. Moderato
8. Adagio
9. Allegro

Three Pieces for solo viola
10. Moderato
11. [Largo]
12. [Allegro]

Sonatine (1928) *
pour clarinette et piano
13. Moderato
14. Lento
15. Allegro

* world premiere recording

'Wit and polish: The Berkeley Ensemble do their namesake proud'

- BBC Music Magazine (Chamber Choice, 5 stars)

'Wit and polish: The Berkeley Ensemble do their namesake proud [...] The playing is superb throughout, the recording warm and clear'
BBC Music Magazine (Chamber Choice, 5 stars performance & recording)

'[...] there is the high quality of the performances by the Berkeley Ensemble, a malleable group which, like the Nash Ensemble, can adapt itself to to different formats and plays as if it were truly inside the music'
The Daily Telegraph

'Outstanding in the exuberantly performed sequence are the expressive central adagio of the Op 19 String Trio and the 1971 Introduction and Allegro for double bass (Lachlan Radford) and piano (Libby Burgess)'
The Sunday Times

'This brilliant young ensemble, formed from members of the Southbank Sinfonia in 2008, made a strong impact in their debut recording. This release is just as polished [...] Informative notes from Berkeley's biographer Tony Scotland complete a fascinating release - well recorded too'
Gramophone

'I haven’t singled out individual performers or performances because they are each, it seems to me, ideal and wonderfully illuminating [...] The Berkeley Ensemble can be trusted to show a total belief and understanding in the composer and his language.'
MusicWeb International

'All of the music is attractive – none of it deserves to be so little known – and the Berkeley Ensemble give fine performances of the composer whose name they bear. The recording is good'
MusicWeb International (download roundup)

'I really enjoyed listening to this disc. The music here deserves to be much better known and appreciated.
Lark Reviews

Credits
© 2015 Resonus Limited
Ⓟ 2015 Resonus Limited
Catalogue No. RES10149
Producer, engineer & editor: Adam Binks
EAN: 5060262790533
Cover image: Lennox Berkeley, 1938 (Howard Coster, by permission of Lady Berkeley and the Lennox Berkeley Estate)