Elgar - Sea Pictures, The Music Makers
Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO continue their critically acclaimed Elgar project with Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, with Kathryn Rudge as soloist. Sea Pictures is one of the composer’s most popular works and as an orchestral song cycle stands alongside those by Mahler and Strauss. The Music Makers however has had a more troubled history. Elgar had worked on it on and off from 1903 and it was premiered in 1912. Both words and music came in for criticism. Elgar quotes from his symphonies, and ‘Nimrod’ as well as other sources. It can be viewed in the same way as ‘Ein Heldenleben’’ though here the composer is not a hero, but a bard.
Tracklisting
EDWARD ELGAR (1857–1934)
Sea Pictures Op.37
1 Sea Slumber Song 5.13 (words by Roden Noel)
2 In Haven (Capri) 1.52 (words by Alice Elgar)
3 Sabbath Morning at Sea 5.24 (words by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
4 Where Corals Lie 3.43 (words by Richard Garnett)
5 The Swimmer 5.50 (words by Adam Lindsay Gordon)
The Music Makers Op.69
(words by Alfred O’Shaughnessy)
6 Introduction 3.19
7 We are the music makers 3.56
8 We, in the ages lying 3.59
9 A breath of our inspiration 4.18
10 They had no vision amazing 7.41
11 But we, with our dreaming and singing 3.27
12 For we are afar with the dawning 2.25
13 All hail! we cry to the corners 9.11
Total timing: 60.25