Release Date: 5 January 2006
NMC's Ancora series continues with a joint 70th birthday tribute to Nicholas Maw and Richard Rodney Bennett:
Life Studies, written for the virtuoso players of The Academy of St Martin-in-the Fields (the performers on this recording), is a series of vibrant character studies which range from the intensity of Penderecki and lyricism of Britten to a jazzy double bass solo (in Study V).
Richard Rodney Bennett's dramatic cantata Spells sets a sequence of haunting invocations by Kathleen Raine; it is performed by its dedicatee, soprano Jane Manning, with The Philharmonia Orchestra, Bach Choir and Sir David Willcocks.
Originally released on Continuum Records in 1992.
Jane Manning soprano
The Bach Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
Sir David Wilcocks conductor
The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Sir Neville Marriner conductor
AUDIO
REVIEWS
'Maw treads a completely resolved path in his Life Studies between Bergian reserve and Tippett-like buoyant ecstasy... This is sheerly brilliant writing and the Academy trounces the challenge. [Jane Manning in Spells] is in splendid voice - try the Spell of Safekeeping - where she is at her wonderful best. Two brilliant retrievals from the fearsome mid-1970s.' MusicWeb
RECORDING CREDITS
All works were recorded in 1978 at Walthamstow Town Hall.
STAN GOODDALL & COLIN MOORFOOT (Life Studies), STAN GOODDALL & JOHN PELLOWE (Spells) Recording Engineers
JAMES MALLINSON (Life Studies) & CHRIS HAZELL (Spells) Recording Producers
DAVID LEFEBER Editing & mastering
(P) 2006 NMC Recordings Ltd
© 2006 NMC Recordings Ltd
Catalogue number: NMC D085
Release Date: 5 January 2006