NEW from The Sixteen

Album Description

Featuring 17 Premiere recordings

Celebrating Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford's centenary, this new album from The Sixteen includes a number of premiere recordings of Stanford's Irish Folksongs and Partsongs.

Stanford is celebrated both nationally and internationally as a composer of great diversity. He composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies, but he is best-remembered for his choral works. Stanford’s writing for voices is exquisite and his imaginative storytelling is ever-present in his Irish Folksongs where he captures everything from fiery revenge to passionate love with equal effectiveness. Stanford’s dedication to the poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge also stands out—he was drawn to the lyricism of her poetry and the imagery she conjures up—something that is clearly heard in his Opus 127 settings. Much of her poetry is marked by a sense of loss and change, nowhere better portrayed than in The Guest with its unsettling narrative.

Supported by

The Stanford Society

Artists

The Sixteen
Harry Christophers

Track Listing

Six Irish Folksongs, Op. 78 

1. Oh! breathe not his name                    

2. What the bee is to the flow’ret            

3. At the mid hour of night         

4. The sword of Erin                     

5. It is not the tear         

6. Oh, the sight entrancing         

Eight Partsongs, Op. 127 

7. Plighted *                    

8. Veneta                                        

9. When Mary thro’ the garden went

10. The Haven                               

11. The Guest *                             

12. Larghetto *               

13. Wilderspin *                            

14. To a tree *                

Six Elizabethan Pastorals (Set I), Op. 49

15. To his flocks              

16. Diaphenia                 

17. Damon’s passion *  

18. Sweet love for me                  

19. Corydon, arise!        

20. Phoebe *

Nine Irish Folksongs

21. ’Twas pretty to be in Ballinderry *

22. Come, rest in this bosom *

23. Silence is inn oiur festal halls *

24. Wreathe the bowl * 

25. When she answered me *

26. She is far from the land *     

27. St Mary’s Bells *

28. Awake, awake, Fianna *

29. Molly Hewson *

Bonus Track

30. Emer’s farewell to Cucullain (Londonderry Air) *

Total running time:   75.53

* indicates premiere recording