Tasmin Little, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Sir Andrew Davis - Tasmin Little Plays British Violin Concertos (2015/2022) [24/96]

Following on from the acclaimed Elgar and Moeran concertos, Tasmin Little and Sir Andrew Davis continue their special affinity for British music with this exciting new recording featuring the music of Coleridge-Taylor, Wood, and Delius.

Born in England of an English mother and a Sierra Leonean father, Coleridge-Taylor was much revered as a composer, dubbed ‘the black Mahler’ in the US in his later years. He was commissioned to write a violin concerto in 1910 for the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut and responded with a work based on several spirituals. After submitting it, he decided to completely rewrite it, concluding that the new one was ‘ten thousand times better than the other’. The premiere in 1912 – delayed because scores had gone astray – met with critical acclaim. The composer died a few months later. Like his predecessor Coleridge-Taylor, Haydn Wood studied violin at the Royal College of Music and composition with Sir Charles Stanford. This concerto is his only surviving one for violin. The high-romantic expression of the first movement is followed by a virtually continuous stream of lyrical melody in the second, and a full-blooded finale that at the same time is light and lively.

This album also features a Suite of four short character pieces by Delius, in the spirit of the Lyric Pieces for piano by his friend and mentor Edvard Grieg.

"Besides the stellar quality of Little's playing (as ever, warmly engaging and technically bombproof), Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic provide accompaniments in a special class. The slow movements of Wood's Concerto opens with a long theme for the principal horn, delivered here with spellbinding loveliness" (BBC Music Magazine)

"[The Delius is] an odd mix of movements, three looking forward to the music that would come a few years later while the fourth seems to have strayed in from from some forgotten work by Mendelssohn or Max Bruch. Little pays it just as much careful attention as the other two equally unfamiliar works on her disc." (The Guardian)

Tracklist:
01. I. Allegro maestoso
02. II. Andante semplice
03. III. Allegro molto
04. I. Pastorale. Andante quasi Allegretto
05. II. Intermezzo. Allegro molto vivace
06. III. Élégie. Adagio cantabile
07. IV. Finale. Allegro animato
08. I. Allegro moderato
09. II. Andante sostenuto
10. III. Finale. Allegro giocoso


Thanks to the Original customer!