EMR CD003 | DETAILS
  EMR CD003
   
  Bantock and Holbrooke: VIOLA AND VIOLIN SONATAS
  Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn & va) | Matthew Rickard (pf)
   
  Released 4 October 2011 | EAN 5 060263 500025
EM Records’ third disc features Joseph Holbrooke’s Second Violin Sonata (restored to its original version) and the Viola Sonata by Granville Bantock – played on Gustav Holst’s viola. Luxuriously romantic, these works also display striking individuality, juxtaposing warm lyricism, wry humour and exuberant energy. They are performed by regular EMF artists Rupert Marshall-Luck and Matthew Rickard, whose recording of Violin Sonatas by Bliss, Walford Davies and York Bowen formed EM Records’ first release and which has been greeted with glowing critical acclaim.
TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Joseph Holbrooke (1878–1958)
SONATA IN F MAJOR FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (‘THE GRASSHOPPER’)
(1917 version – authorised original version)
   
1. I. Allegro con molto fuoco – Vivace (non troppo) – Più vivace – Presto  
2. II. Adagio non troppo con molta espressione – Poco allegretto – Poco
andante – Tempo primo
 
3. III. Maestoso – Vivace giocoso – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I – Tempo
meno mosso – Lento – Tempo I
 
     
Granville Bantock (1868–1946)
SONATA IN F MAJOR FOR VIOLA AND PIANO ‘COLLEEN’
(World Première recording)
   
4. I. Allegro con anima  
5. II. Maestoso sostenuto, rubato – Più moto – Sostenuto cantabile –
Tempo primo – Poco lento – Meno allegro – Più lento – Lento molto
 
6. III. Vivace – Poco allegretto sostenuto – Tempo I – Allegretto con moto –
Con fuoco e molto rubato – Tempo I (Vivace) – Largamente – Presto
 
REVIEWS
Beautifully shaped by Benjamin Frith... Beguiling sounds, graced by the tawny richness and unexaggerated line of Richard Jenkinson’s cello playing... The sense of purpose and sureness of line of Ian Venables’ music is pure oxygen.
EMR CD31 | BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Exquisitely rewarding... Ravishing accounts.
EMR CD029 | CHOIR AND ORGAN
This is music of great beauty and integrity and the performances fully do it justice. It would be criminal to let it pass you by.

EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW

The Bridge Quartet approach these pieces with a sympathetic and insightful warmth, and confirm their ambassadorial credentials for British chamber music. A lovely, radiant disc.
EMR CD025 | Gramophone
Duncan Honeybourne’s playing is astonishingly affectionate, yet never saccharine... Honeybourne plays with suave confidence.
EMR CD024 | INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Rupert Marshall-Luck is an ideal interpreter: generously but not effusively lyrical; agile and athletic... The warm, folk-song like slow movement is at times almost painfully beautiful, with a shimmering pastoral central section... Marshall-Luck is, again, indefatigable and keenly picks up on the work’s melancholic strain.  Finely recorded and with comprehensive booklet notes, this is a must for fans of 20th-century English repertoire.
EMR CD023 | THE STRAD