SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a thrilling first collaboration between long-time SOMM stablemates, baritone Roderick Williams and the Coull Quartet, joined by tenor James Gilchrist and soprano Sophie Bevan. With six first recordings, On This Shining Night is a ravishing recital focusing revealingly on a 20th-century phenomenon: works for voice and string quartet. It takes it's title from a James Agate setting by Samuel Barber (whose masterly Dover Beach is also heard), here in a sublime arrangement by Roderick Williams. Williams also provides arrangements of Barber's Sleep Now and three Frederick Delius pieces from his Seven Songs from the Norwegian: the evocative Twilight Fancies, vivacious Young Venevil and exotic I-Brasil. They serve, as Robert Matthew-Walker's erudite booklet notes observe, as companions to 11 songs by Delius's close friend and associate, Peter Warlock, including the gentle intimacy of Corpus Christi, the "mini-cantata" Sorrow's Lullaby, and unique free-recitative of My gostly vader. Composed for Williams and the Coull Quartet, Sally Beamish's five-part Tree Carols offer striking, variegated settings of poems by Fiona Sampson in their premiere recording. Roderick Williams' SOMM catalogue include the acclaimed three-volume Twelve Sets of English Lyrics by Hubert Parry (SOMMCD 257, 270, 272), Sally Beamish's Four Songs from Hafez (Birdsong, SOMMCD 0633), and the classic English song cycles A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), which MusicWeb International declared a "game changer... in terms of our appreciation of Arthur Somervell's songs". The Coull Quartet has recorded a wide repertoire for SOMM. Their recording of Nicholas Maw and Benjamin Britten quartets (SOMMCD 065) was a Gramophone Editor's Choice and a BBC Music Magazine Benchmark Recording. Gramophone declared their recent SOMM release with ClÃ©lia Iruzun, Treasures from the New World, featuring piano quintets by Amy Beach and Henrique Oswald (SOMMCD 0609), "a delight".

Tracklist:

Chopcherry
Corpus Christi
Fairest May
Mourn no moe
Sad Song
My gostly fader
My Lady is a pretty one
My little sweet darling
Sleep
Sorrow's Lullaby
Take, O take those lips away
Dover Beach
Sleep now
Sure on this shining night
Tree Carols~The Miracle Tree
Tree Carols~The trees are troubled
Tree Carols~Vigil
Tree Carols~The tree is a changing sky
Tree Carols~Bushes and Briars
I-Brasil
Songs from the Norwegian, RT v/9~Twilight Fancies
Songs from the Norwegian, RT v/9~Young Venevil

UPC: 748871065420
Label: Somm Recordings
Release Date: 11.18.22
Format: CD

Barber / Williams / Coull Quartet - On This Shining Night (CD)