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Track Listings
| 1. Moeran, Six Folksongs from Norfolk |
| 2. Moeran, The North Sea Ground |
| 3. Moeran, High Germany |
| 4. Moeran, The Sailor and Young Nancy |
| 5. Moeran, The Little Milkmaid |
| 6. Moeran, The Jolly Carter |
| 7. Moeran, Parson and Clerk |
| 8. Moeran, Gaol Song |
| 9. Moeran, Six Suffolk Folksongs |
| 10. Moeran, Songs from County Kerry |
Product Description
Review
Moeran did not write a great deal and what he did write has in large part been recorded. John Talbot s contribution to the Moeran renaissance has been benevolent both as an instigator and as a pianist with the skills and empathy to search out the sensitive and sometimes ebullient soul of this music. Take the fragile and elusive beauty of The Dawning of the Day which he limns in with the unerring strength that lies in restraint as much as heroic assertion. Thompson meets Talbot in splendour of approach. Everything feels just right. I confess that unadulterated folksongs do not in general hold my attention. These however are done with the irresistible life-enhancing vitality that Moeran gave to his own concert works. This, in general, fends off the worst excesses of pretty milkmaids and the other vapid apparatus of the genre. The songs are varied: poetic settings are mixed in with rough and rolling ballads in the manner of Finzis Budmouth Dears, Ireland s Great Things and Sea Fever, Stanford (Songs of the Sea and Songs of the Fleet) and Warlock (Captain Stratton s Fancy) such as A Seaman s Life and The North Sea Ground. Even so there is time for a most effective and triumphant moment of pensive reflection just at the end of this last song. I wondered from Talbot s way with the utterly fascinating and intensely original asymmetrical rhythmic underpinning of High Germany whether I was in for more of the same no such thing. This is a gloriously shaped song which deserves a concert status of its own. A handful of the songs do suffer from the enervation that goes with an oh-so-precious compositional style. It s the sort of thing that certainly afflicts The Little Milkmaid, Parson and Clerk and The Tinker s Daughter. For good or ill I always associated this prissy prancing with Peter Pears. The members of the Weybridge Male Voice Choir finely take the chorus in The Sailor and Young Nancy, The Jolly Carter and The Gaol Song. John Talbot once again infuses a brightness and glinting dazzle which is more than compensation for the occasional wince provoked by the words in three or four of the songs. Marcus Farnsworth rather nicely darkens his voice for Blackberry Fold, the second of the Six Suffolk Folksongs. Farnsworth the baritone who takes seventeen of the 26 songs - has a fine voice and is well in style carrying off his role with aplomb. Thompson despite a strain in his voice is very affecting in slow sunset warmth of The Isle of Cloy. He takes all seven Songs from County Kerry. These are in the same superior league as the Six Norfolk Songs. Piano parts in all 26 songs are invariably inventive and satisfying but these Kerry and Norfolk sets are excellent in both vocal and piano lines. The Murder of Father Hanratty can be counted in the same company as the subject-related Housman song Farewell to barn and stack and tree from the cycle Ludlow Town. The 24 page booklet is superbly done. There s an essay on E.J. Moeran and Folksong by Roy Palmer of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. There s also a substantial piece by another Moeran authority, Ian Maxwell on his edition of The North Sea Ground. The sung words are not reproduced but the diction of the two singers is such that every word can be heard. In any event you can download the words in pdf format from the BMS site. www.britishmusicsociety.com --Rob Barnett
CD Description
Ernest John ('Jack') Moeran (1894-1950) was the last major representative of the group of English composers who, in the first decade of the twentieth century, sought musical inspiration in the melodic beauty of traditional folksong. In addition to using folksong-related material in a number of his original works, Moeran also made many direct arrangements of folksongs he collected throughout his lifetime, principally in areas of East Anglia and the south-west of Ireland, including the twenty-five for solo voice and piano recorded here together for the first time. Included in the programme, which contains a number of première recordings, are Six Folksongs from Norfolk, Six Suffolk Folksongs, Songs from County Kerry, and a further six individual folksong arrangements. A first recording of Moeran's earliest known and only recently discovered solo song, The North Sea Ground, provides an attractive bonus to this delightful recital. The recording is released on the sixtieth anniversary of Moeran's death on 1 December 1950.
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Format:Audio CD
Much of Moeran's music is associated with landscape, and the poles on which this interest is centred in his case are Norfolk, where he spent his early childhood, and Ireland, from where his father hailed, and for which Moeran had a lifelong passion. Both these influences are felt in the Symphony in G Minor. It is little suprise, therefore, to find the majority of his folksong arrangements deriving from songs he collected in Norfolk and nearby Suffolk, and from County Kerry which eventually became a "second home" for him. All these arrangements have been included on this enterprising BMS disc.
The Six Folksongs from Norfolk have a nautical theme, as befits a seaboard county, with tales of sailors and their sweethearts, and acts of daring on the waves. The mood ranges from the sprightly "Bold Richard" to the meltingly beautiful "Lonely Waters" on which Moeran also based an orchestral rhapsody. All the settings are comparatively simple and unadorned, allowing the melodic line to shine through. Although the liner notes do not include the texts, the diction of baritone Marcus Farnsworth is clear enough to enable the listener to do without.
There follows a group of disparate settings which includes some songs made familiar by other collector-composers such as Vaughan Williams, notably "High Germany" (though melodically somewhat different to RVW's use of the song in his English Folksong Suite) and "The Sailor and Young Nancy". The opening number of the group, "The North Sea Ground",which extols the wartime exploits of the good fisherfolk of Grimsby, appears not to be a folksong at all, but an original Moeran composition in folksong idiom.
The Six Suffolk Folksongs, again, are populated with sailors, farmers, maidens, stories of anguished leave-taking, and rash promises, and range beyond their native Suffolk (the maiden in "Nutting Time" comes from Kent). The melodies of various folksongs were often cross-pollinated, and the tune of the beautiful "Isle of Cloy" bears a distinct resemblance to the Sussex folksong "Phoebe and the Dark-Eyed Sailor", which appears in both RVW's Five English Folksongs, and George Butterworth's English Idyll No.2. Again, the mood varies from the brisk "A Seaman's Life" to the lovely, plaintive "Blackberry Fold". The songs here are shared between the baritone and the tenor Adrian Thompson.
The Songs from County Kerry follow much the same pattern as the other collections, though with an inevitable Irish lilt to them, and there tends to be a greater sophistication to the words than is usual with traditional folksongs, particularly in the case of "The Dawning of the Day". Another of these songs, "The Lost Lover", has a beautiful, haunting melody whose atmosphere re-emerges in some of Moeran's folksong-inflected orchestral works - the Symphony and the Cello Concerto in particular.
Despite the absence of texts, the liner notes are really informative, containing a substantial essay by Roy Palmer on Moeran as a collector and arranger of folksongs, and a surprisingly detailed piece by Ian Maxwell on the evolution of "The North Sea Ground". As both accompanist on, and producer of this disc, John Talbot's contribution has been indispensible. This first recording of Moeran's complete folksong arrangements is a "must" for anyone with an interest in British music generally, and folksong in particular.
The Six Folksongs from Norfolk have a nautical theme, as befits a seaboard county, with tales of sailors and their sweethearts, and acts of daring on the waves. The mood ranges from the sprightly "Bold Richard" to the meltingly beautiful "Lonely Waters" on which Moeran also based an orchestral rhapsody. All the settings are comparatively simple and unadorned, allowing the melodic line to shine through. Although the liner notes do not include the texts, the diction of baritone Marcus Farnsworth is clear enough to enable the listener to do without.
There follows a group of disparate settings which includes some songs made familiar by other collector-composers such as Vaughan Williams, notably "High Germany" (though melodically somewhat different to RVW's use of the song in his English Folksong Suite) and "The Sailor and Young Nancy". The opening number of the group, "The North Sea Ground",which extols the wartime exploits of the good fisherfolk of Grimsby, appears not to be a folksong at all, but an original Moeran composition in folksong idiom.
The Six Suffolk Folksongs, again, are populated with sailors, farmers, maidens, stories of anguished leave-taking, and rash promises, and range beyond their native Suffolk (the maiden in "Nutting Time" comes from Kent). The melodies of various folksongs were often cross-pollinated, and the tune of the beautiful "Isle of Cloy" bears a distinct resemblance to the Sussex folksong "Phoebe and the Dark-Eyed Sailor", which appears in both RVW's Five English Folksongs, and George Butterworth's English Idyll No.2. Again, the mood varies from the brisk "A Seaman's Life" to the lovely, plaintive "Blackberry Fold". The songs here are shared between the baritone and the tenor Adrian Thompson.
The Songs from County Kerry follow much the same pattern as the other collections, though with an inevitable Irish lilt to them, and there tends to be a greater sophistication to the words than is usual with traditional folksongs, particularly in the case of "The Dawning of the Day". Another of these songs, "The Lost Lover", has a beautiful, haunting melody whose atmosphere re-emerges in some of Moeran's folksong-inflected orchestral works - the Symphony and the Cello Concerto in particular.
Despite the absence of texts, the liner notes are really informative, containing a substantial essay by Roy Palmer on Moeran as a collector and arranger of folksongs, and a surprisingly detailed piece by Ian Maxwell on the evolution of "The North Sea Ground". As both accompanist on, and producer of this disc, John Talbot's contribution has been indispensible. This first recording of Moeran's complete folksong arrangements is a "must" for anyone with an interest in British music generally, and folksong in particular.
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