Maconchy & Vaughan Williams: Songs, Volume 2

Regular price £12.99
Total playing time [77:22]

James Geer (tenor)
Ronald Woodley (piano)

This second of two releases to mark the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s birth presents a further two major song collections by the composer, while bringing to light another selection of songs by his student Elizabeth Maconchy. Her works here are almost all unpublished and virtually unknown since their first performances from manuscript, and span several decades of the composer’s career from the time of her studies with Vaughan Williams in the mid-1920s through to her committed espousal of the British modernist aesthetic by the 1960s and 70s.

The songs are performed by tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley in this continuation of their long-standing partnership.

Album Booklet (PDF)

Tracklist

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
Four Last Songs
1. Procris
2. Tired
3. Hands, Eyes, and Heart
4. Menelaus

Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994)
5. The Exequy

The Garland
6. The Garland
7. Old and Young
8. I Would I Were a Mirror
9. No End to Love

10. Sailor’s Song of the Two Balconies
11. The Disillusion
12. The Swallow
13. The Poet-Wooer
14. Sleep Brings No Joy To Me
15. In Fountain Court

Ralph Vaughan Williams
The House of Life
16. Love-Sight
17. Silent Noon
18. Love’s Minstrels
19. Heart’s Haven
20. Death in Love
21. Love’s Last Gift

Elizabeth Maconchy
22. How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza (original version of 1937)

'Three cheers for this valuable second helping of songs by Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 94) courtesy of those adventurous folk at Resonus Classics.'

- Gramophone

'The final instalment of Resonus’s two-part parade of songs by Vaughan Williams and his sometime pupil Elizabeth Maconchy offers as much food for thought and delight as its predecessor. [...] the forthright and sympathetic approach of tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley always makes listening a pleasure.'
BBC Music Magazine

'Three cheers for this valuable second helping of songs by Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 94) courtesy of those adventurous folk at Resonus Classics.'
Gramophone

Credits
© 2023 Resonus Limited
Ⓟ 2023 Resonus Limited
Catalogue No. RES10317
Producer, engineer & editor: Andrew Hallifax
Executive producer: Adam Binks
EAN: 5060262793510
Cover image: The Love Song by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1868–77)
Release date: 21 April 2023