Catalogue Connection: 25131

We probably need a note on genre here: if only to prevent me putting you off this gorgeous disc by doing a self-consciously “classical” review. Elsewhere, you’ll find me raving about Pop, Flamenco, Klezmer, Jazz and Prog when I’m not mentioning great scores in film recommendations or extolling fine writing in TV as well as modern novels, from Burgess and O’Brian to Block (murder mysteries).

So I don’t normally “do” Classical reviews; they have mostly been done, after all. But I do get the urge to recommend anything whose quality renders it “classic” in the timeless sense. And there is, happily, a lot of wonderful music here. All of it is generated through the application of broad experience and understanding, technical and emotional, of people the composer can rightly claim as his peers (Britten, Vaughan-Williams, Holst, Warlock, Arnold and many others, up to and including John Donne – the highest praise I can give) to a simple but exceptionally abundant palette.

Above all, what compels me to commend this is the sheer amount of listening this composer has done and which is so evident in his compositions: Philip Wood has clearly enjoyed, as you will, his exceptional musical education – which, again, he gives back (he teaches, I understand) in gestures that combine gravitas with a sense of humour, a feeling of pleasures won through skill and effort but shared in a mood of mutual celebration and in the spirit of endless entertainment.

Yes, this is music that rewards listening more completely than most. Not just your ears, but the listening of the performers in bringing it to you, their attention to each other and the score: which is very much a case of these particular notes in this particular order forming a richer and more generous whole through being sung and played – and recorded – so sympathetically.

Wood’s intricate way with simplicity extends beyond musical attention, too. His ear for speech-rhythms and poetic diction is matched by a fine attunement to the sounds of nature, birdsong, weather, breathing. The settings of songs and sonnets here achieves beautiful variety around a core of authenticity which goes beyond “illustration” of experience and captures the essence of English culture in its purest form. It’s like a new look at a familiar landscape in the company of a perceptive, talented friend. With some spontaneous dancing.

The disc comes with excellent notes from the composer which will help to reinforce that sense of an invitation to pass time with good company (an appropriate quotation, there). This is also transmitted by the quality of the recording and the calibre of those recorded. The performers on the disc couldn’t be better suited to the music: more than enough experience (past) to stamp their collective authority on already deeply-rooted music; plus the flair to bring out Wood’s original, erudite eye and ear on the future.

The best “new” is forged with respect to history, plus inspiration: and goes on to establish its own longevity – “timeless” again. In that regard, Lesley-Jane Rogers’ soprano is the perfect vehicle for these words and these notes, whether she sings unaccompanied, or along with another familiar-but-new voice, that of the recorder, here played by virtuoso John Turner. Then, with Harvey Davies on harpsichord and Heather Billson on cello, the ensemble continues to express Wood’s intentions to perfection, accomplishing strokes that are at once recognisable and novel, fresh yet familiar in the way that the new cuckoo is to everyone who has heard one before, or who yearns for next year’s on a winter night.

Add another virtuoso cello from Jonathan Price to the striking counter-tenor of James Bowman (Partita), cap the programme with the Manchester Camerata Ensemble (Richard Howarth and Julia Hanson, violin; Tom Dunn, viola; Jonathan Price, cello) and you can feel the music growing organically, come to discern its own internal seasons that Wood has embedded from a life in music and his love of his Lake District home.

Wood does austerity and frivolity with equal finesse. He allows the words of the “set pieces” to establish the overall tone and proceeds to complement the text with what I can best describe as highly-focused elaboration, a controlled intensity that serves to animate and liberate the poetry.

He chooses writing that, like his music, both embodies and transcends tradition, fusing the concentration and compression he brings with that of the originals (especially Donne’s) to generate what is almost a “third form” out of the collaboration, one that involves the listener in an elegant, exciting and moving partnership. And when I say “moving”, I’m attesting not just to the profundity of many passages, but also the happy vigour of something like the (instrumental) Forlana – whose danceability at least one child of my acquaintance will gleefully, physically endorse whenever she hears it.

There are a lot of “voices” here, but the unifying element is that of Wood. The sheer amount of music on the disc offers us the opportunity to step into a lively and informed “conversation” about music (and poetry, landscape, relationships), all of it eloquently “chaired” by the well-informed composer-listener.

It’s not just the musical information, either: the disc has “lyrics” from as varied a list as the Troubadour Arnault Daniel, John Donne, John Keats, Henry Vaughan, Christina Rosetti, Adrian Mitchell and John O’ Keefe (in whose “Amo, Amas”, lovers “feed each other through their skins and eat / Religiously the spiced, symbolic meat”). That alone should give you a sense of what’s on the menu; but there’s also a palpable relish for the very forms explored and the blend of tradition and exoticism they conjure: Aubade, Nocturne, Capriccio, Moto Perpetuo, Aria, Rondo…

If we really have to, “English Neo-Classical” might be the proper section for Sonnets, Airs and Dances: but “timeless” is better and “self-defining” is best of all. So the truest category for this work is… Philip Wood. And it’s a fabulous introduction to this composer’s music, in that it manages to be both highly personal, with a recognisable identity, whilst universal in a way for which the simplest formula is: if you love music you should love what Dr Wood and his world-class colleagues do here.

The prodigious output of recordings featuring English recorder virtuoso John Turner reflects his significant engagement with contemporary English composers. The music on this beautiful Divine Art release is by Philip Wood, and stands in the mainstream English musical idiom well-known in the works of Malcolm Arnold, and aesthetically related to the pastoral sound of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

In its own way, this music is every bit as dreamy as the works on Latin Reverie [also given a review in this issue]. The recorder (and Turner’s playing) take center stage in three of the six works ( Partita for Recorder and Cello , A Lonsdale Dance and Concertino for Recorder and String Quartet ), and share the spotlight with singer Lesley-Jane Rogers in Sonnets Airs and Dances and Five Spring Songs.

The Partita is a stunning work for recorder and cello. The interaction of the two voices recalls the beauty of melody and bass lines in Handel’s recorder sonatas. Of particular depth is the “Nocturne” movement. In its two movements, Wood’s Concertino for Recorder and String Quartet develops gradually in the flowing and dramatic “Adagio non troppo”, and concludes with a bracing “Allegro con brio.”

Sonnets, Airs and Dances and Five Spring Songs are both quite substantial pieces, with a great variety of mood in the setting of the texts. The writing for recorder, harpsichord and cello both supports the voice and brings each instrument into the foreground at appropriate moments.

This disc provides high audio quality, and the CD package is very well designed. The notes by the composer invite the listener into the pieces. The enunciation of Bowman and Rogers is so clear that the inclusion of song texts in the booklet is almost unnecessary.

The good people at Divine Art Recordings just sent in a musical care package eminently suited to calm some of our troubled minds so overloaded with the noise emanating these days from our TV sets. I turned off CCN and put on Sonnets, Airs and Dances (dda 25131) of instrumental and vocal music by a most gifted composer heretofore unknown to me: Philip Wood.

The neatly-packaged CD has 24 tracks, and a running time of 71 minutes of sheer delight. It was recorded at different times, though it credits one sound engineer, Richard Scott, to whom I tip my hat for utterly clear, undistorted, intimately comforting sound.

Sonnets, Airs and Dances is a short cycle of four songs for soprano, harpsichord and recorder, set to poetry by Donne, Keats and some of their contemporaries, and interspersed by two instrumental pieces: a Furlana and a Sarabande . Of the six pieces, the unaccompanied O my Blacke Soule is a stunner.

Five Spring Songs adds cello to the recorder, harpsichord, soprano ensemble and salutes in a pantheistic way Spring and Youth in a short set of settings by English poets. Two Motets for solo soprano are lovely settings of Latin texts from the Common Book of Prayer ( sic : actually the Roman liturgy ) Ave Maria and Ave verum corpus . The Partita for Recorder and Cello explores the unlikely pairing with felicitous results.

Countertenor James Bowman commands our attention with the multi-lingual Aria, Recitative and Rondo, accompanied by cellist, Jonathan Price. This is a most theatrical piece that riffs on love spiritual and carnal providing a perfect vehicle for Bowman’s velvety countertenor. After the instrumental for solo recorder, A Lonsdale Dance , the CD ends with a two-movement Concertino for Recorder and String Quartet. Both are light-hearted pieces d’occasion rife with inventiveness.

Composer Wood and his eclectic instrumental and vocal forces – soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers, John Turner, recorder, Harvey Davies, harpsichord, Heather Bills and Jonathan Price, cellists, and countertenor James Bowman who make up the Manchester Camerata Ensemble* provide a most pleasurable listening experience. The six musicians serve this beautiful music with a neat mix of flair and accuracy coupled to that elusive style so difficult to imitate, so impossible to pin down, so quintessentially English.

English composer Philip Wood (b. 1972) was educated at the University of Northampton and Leeds University, where he studied with Philip Wilby and Julian Rushton. He has written a great deal of music especially for amateur performers, .though this disc collects seven of his works written for professional musicians. The main performer on the disc is recorderist John Turner, who has specialized and championed hundreds of new chamber works for his instrument. The other musicians on this album are in what I informally think of as the “Turner circle”, as they are among his frequent collaborators.

Wood’s liner notes acknowledge a passion for 20th-century British composers of a traditionalist cast; he names Vaughan Williams, Holst, Walton, Arnold, Alwyn, Rubbra, and Cooke, among others. These names give an idea as to the world that his music inhabits. While it can often be an elusive exercise to identify elements of national style, there is something in Wood’s music that certainly has a distinctly English manner. Several of the works set texts by English poets, and Wood notes that the music in general takes inspiration from the landscape of the Lake District where he lives (in Cumbria). The writing is always concise and well made, and the manner is generally genial.

The two works that most stood out to me were Two Motets: expressive settings of Latin liturgical texts for unaccompanied soprano; and the extremely fine Recorder Concerto, a very expressive two-movement work. Sonnets, Airs, and Dances is compelling in its understatement—of the six movements, only three use all the performers together; one is for the soprano alone, and two are for the instruments only. All the works are comprised of short movements (only three movements across the whole disc are longer than four minutes). The performances on this album by Turner and his colleagues are all excellent. In his notes, Wood calls the album a “modest collection,” which is an apt description. As someone who believes very strongly that there is great artistic value in modest expression (i.e., not every piece needs to attempt some sort of “grand statement”), I feel Wood has succeeded admirably with this appealing music.

I began my exploration of this new disc of music by Philip Wood with the short ‘Lonsdale Dance’ written for unaccompanied descant recorder. The work carries a subtitle ‘Champêtre’ which implies that a pastoral mood was intended. The ‘Lonsdale’ in question is located in Westmorland and was once described by John Ruskin as having ‘moorland hill, and sweet river and English forest foliage … at their best.’ The Dance, which is conceived in two contrasting sections was written to explore the resources of the recorder and display John Turner’s virtuosity: it succeeds on both counts. Lonsdale Dance’ is dedicated to Lady Caroline, the then Dowager Countess of Lonsdale.

I moved on to what is probably the most significant piece on this CD, the Concertino for recorder and string quartet. This work was composed some 15 years ago for the present players and was first performed at a Royal Northern College of Music concert in that year. The Concertino is in two movements — I could have wished for a third — and presents some involved passage-work for soloist and quartet. The opening movement is dark and lugubrious (muted strings) with reflective playing on the treble recorder. However, the second movement livens things up considerably with a change of instrument to descant recorder with spiky, aggressive music from all the players. There are some interesting tonal effects from the soloist. Altogether an enjoyable and approachable work that deserves a place in the concerted recorder repertoire.

I then chose to explore the ‘Five Spring Songs’ which are settings of a wide range of poets including W.E. Henley, Christina Rossetti, Henry Vaughan, George Peele and ‘Anon’. These were written in 2011 as a birthday gift for Wood’s composer friend Nicholas Marshall. The songs were designed to reflect ‘nature, birdsong and youth’ rather than ‘age and advancing years’. I enjoyed the interesting combination of recorder, cello and harpsichord supporting the stunning soprano voice of Lesley-Jane Rogers. These songs have no sense of ‘antique parody’, in fact, this particular ensemble has the effect of making them timeless. The choice of poems is imaginative: I especially relished Peele’s ‘When as the Eye’, with its ‘strawberries swimming in the cream …’ made famous in Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony .

The Partita for recorder and cello is a ‘pick and mix of character pieces’ composed once again for John Turner. The key elements of this suite are the evocations of dawn (Aubade) and nightfall (Nocturne). The one is ‘full of noises, strange sounds’ as the birds perform their reveille and the other is dark and introverted. The birds in this movement have something of the night about them. Other pieces include a short, doleful chaconne, a dynamic capriccio and a rumbustious ‘moto perpetuo’. The Partita was premiered in 2003 as a part of the Salford Mayfest.

The Two Motets were written for solo soprano with no accompaniment. They are settings of the well-loved liturgical texts ‘Ave verum corpus’ and ‘Ave Maria’. There is a simplicity here that is both moving and inspirational. They are beautifully sung by Lesley-Jane Rogers.

The CD opens with what is the most ‘substantial’ of the three song-cycles presented here. ‘Sonnets, Airs and Dances’ has six movements and is given the form of a masque or renaissance cantata. The singer is accompanied by the recorder and harpsichord. The verses chosen are diverse and include John Donne’s frankly depressing ‘O my blacke Soule’ which is presented in declamatory style with no accompaniment. This is followed by a quirky little forlane for instrumentalists alone. The mood is lightened by the anonymous ‘Come away, sweet Love’ for all the soloists and ‘Now is my Chloris fresh as May’. Once again, the mood changes with a charming ‘Sarabande’ for recorder and harpsichord. The ‘cantata’ closes with John Keats’ meditation on sleep, ‘O soft embalmer of the still midnight’. This is an important work that defies stylistic categorisation: it is ageless in its impact.

The Aria, Recitative and Rondo for counter-tenor and cello was expressly written for the fine counter-tenor James Bowman. Wood writes that they are ‘in essence three love songs and explore youthful love, sensual love and the more bawdy aspects of lust, respectively.’ It includes poems by Arnault Daniel, a 13 th century troubadour, a ‘Riddle’ by Adrian Mitchell and a bit of macaronic Latin by John O’Keefe. This significant work is ideally suited to Bowman’s fabulous voice.

A word about the composer. Philip Wood was born near Leeds in 1972 and studied Music and Drama in Northampton and later at Leeds University. In 2003, he was awarded a Ph.D. in composition. Over the years he has received many commissions for a wide variety of works including orchestral, choral, chamber and instrumental. Influences include ‘a passion for British music’ with ‘mainstream’ figures such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Malcolm Arnold. He also owes a debt to ‘lesser known names’ including William Alwyn, Bernard Stevens, Edmund Rubbra, Alan Rawsthorne and Arnold Cooke. A dominant influence on his word-setting is Benjamin Britten.

The liner-notes written by the composer are necessary reading and include details of each work. Texts of all the vocal numbers have been included. Brief notices are given of the musicians and Wood himself.

The sound quality of this Divine Art disc is clear and vibrant. The playing by all the performers is, as would be expected, absolutely splendid. Special commendation goes to John Turner’s superb recorder playing and Lesley-Jane Rogers’ delightful soprano voice.

Philip Wood indicates that this album is a ‘cross-section of songs and chamber music written over an eleven year period.’ Most of these pieces have been written as a ‘special gift’ or a ‘gesture of thanks or goodwill’. Perhaps the dominant figure in all this is ‘John Turner, [who] as well as his enthusiasm, encouragement and passion for music-making … has made this recording possible.’ It is a sentiment with which all listeners will readily concur.

In his notes on the music presented on this CD Philip Wood (b. 1972) acknowledges a passion for British music and the influence, not only of some of its mainstream composers, but also some lesser known names, such as Alwyn, Rubbra, Rawsthorne and Arnold Cooke, all of whom it should be noted wrote for the recorder. These influences are apparent in his music, but his own characteristic musical language is ever present, especially in his writing for the voice.

It is with the song cycle Sonnets, Airs and Dances , composed in 2005, that the programme opens. Scored for soprano voice, recorder and harpsichord, it follows an arch pattern, opening and closing with sonnet settings. That with which it begins is a most effective setting for solo voice of Oh, my blacke Soule , one of the most intense of John Donne’s Divine Meditations . The closing sonnet, setting Keats’s O soft embalmer of the still midnight , is for the full ensemble, the poet’s reverie expressed with gentle calm. Two anonymous poems, the light-hearted Come away, come, sweet Love! and the more enigmatic Now is my Chloris fresh as May form the vocal centrepiece and are framed by two purely instrumental dances, a lively Forlane and a more gentle Sarabande. The whole cycle covers a variety of moods and musical textures in a very satisfyingly masque-like structure.

A cello is added to the scoring of Five Spring Songs (2011) setting the anonymous The ‘Happy’ Cuckoo and poems by W E Henley, Christina Rossetti, Henry Vaughan and George Peele. With the exception of Peele’s When as the rye birds feature in all the texts and provide an opportunity for one of the recorder’s oldest associations. Again the vocal writing is lyrical and the accompanying ensemble provides a subtle expressiveness that underpins the atmosphere of each song.

Wood’s remarkable writing for unaccompanied voice is especially evident in his Two Motets for soprano (2004). The very familiar texts of Ave verum corpus and Ave Maria are set with a devotional simplicity of great beauty.

The five movements of the Partita for recorder and cello (2000), though containing a very effective and at the same time brooding Chacony , are far removed from the baroque in character, and again infused with Wood’s lyricism, especially in the opening Aubade and the fourth movement Nocturne . The Capriccio and concluding Moto perpetuo are more energetic and virtuosic; the entire work is underpinned by the very natural and idiomatic writing for both instruments.

The cello is again the accompanying instrument in Aria, Recitative and Rondo for countertenor and cello. The text of the opening Aria is attributed to the 13th-century troubadour Arnault Daniel, while the Recitative and Rondo set texts by Adrian Michell and John O’Keefe respectively. The short cycle is therefore formed of three love songs, and the vocal qualities of the cello form a very effective duo with the countertenor voice in capturing the themes of youthful love, sensual love and the more bawdy aspects of lust!

A Lonsdale Dance (Dance Champêtre) for solo recorder (2007) is an evocative miniature in two short sections, the first cadenza-like, the second more rhythmically emphatic and virtuosic. The composer notes that he also wished to demonstrate the recorder’s versatility, which the piece does very successfully.

The programme closes with Wood’s Concertino for recorder and string quartet (2000). Though its two movements, an expressive Adagio non troppo for treble, and a scampering Allegro con brio for descant, occupy a little under ten minutes, the conciseness of form and structure, and indeed contrast, make this a very rewarding work for listeners and players alike. It is a significant contribution to the ever growing repertoire for recorder and string quartet explored by some of the composers writing for Carl Dolmetsch in the 1950s, a scoring he was keen to encourage, along with the recorder in contemporary chamber music generally.

Philip Wood is a composer who displays his craft and inspiration in music of considerable appeal; the musicians on this CD are clearly at one with his musical creativity, and give fine performances of considerable insight and commitment – highly recommended.

Philip Wood is a present-day representative of the “English School” of composers who looks backward in order to look ahead. The album at hand, Sonnets, Airs and Dances (Divine Art 25131), gives us a good deal of music that lies firmly and delightfully in the neo-classical camp, with a pronounced sort of late renaissance/baroque-meets-modern feel. You can hear the legacy of Britten, Vaughan-Williams, Walton and others of the past century, only Wood applies his own fertile inventive abilities to give us his own take on “the old in the new.”

If I were doing Shakespeare and wanted someone to set the lyrics to the plays with fresh songs, Wood might just be my choice. He manages to capture the pastoral, the natural, the spring effusions favored by poets and songwriters in the earlier times, and you can hear Ophelia in there somehow, too.

The song cycles presented here by soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers, a capella and with recorder virtuoso John Turner, harpsichordist Harvey Davies and for part of them, cellist Heather Bills, have a re-inventive rustic charm and a haunting quality. “Sonnets, Airs and Dances,” “Five Spring Songs,” “Two Motets” all have a special betwixt-and-between feel with present-day elements mingling freely and inventively with early music sonic roots. If Henry Purcell came back from the dead somehow (an unlikely event) and entered my living room (even less likely), wanting to hear what modern music was up to, I might start with this as something he would feel affinity with, before shocking him with some more divergent sounds! I think he would be pleased with this album. Though he would no doubt find it went ways unfamiliar to him.

“Partita for Recorder and Cello” brings John Turner to the fore within a backdrop of nicely figured cello from Jonathan Price. On from there counter-tenor James Bowman stirringly brings us more of the vocal end of Wood’s music with a three-movement “Aria, Recitative and Rondo” for voice and Jonathan Price again on the cello.

The end of the program caps everything off with Turner and his recorder capturing the final moments with the solo “A Lonsdale Dance” and then for a finale the Manchester Camerata chamber ensemble providing the neo-classical backdrop for the delightful “Concertino for Recorder and String Quartet,” which takes us rather closer to the modern sensibilities while still retaining a nod to the past.

This music is balm for musical Anglophiles. Wood is a new voice who carries on with music that captures the English countryside as the English composers are fond of capturing it – regenerative, idyllic, like Hardy’s Wessex, only without his ultimately tragic outlook. I am glad to have this one. It gives us a very nicely expressive series of moments. Wood belongs in your “modern English neo” stacks for sure as a vibrant new member with real talent and the strong ability to avoid cliche and remain fresh. Performances are first-rate and the music transcends some of our weary, dreary present!

Recommended!