EMR CD024 | DETAILS
  EMR CD024
   
  AN IRISH IDYLL
  Duncan Honeybourne (pf)
   
  Released 30 July 2014 | EAN 5 060263 500216

Duncan Honeybourne’s new disc for EM Records explores the piano music of a forgotten romantic composer-pianist, Archy Rosenthal. This larger-than-life character wrote for his instrument with telling individuality, melting tenderness and searing intensity. Dublin-born Rosenthal was a virtuoso pianist of international fame, a pupil of Leschetizky and Godowsky and a close friend of Grieg. The land of his birth never lost its enchantment for this immensely charismatic and imaginative man, and our new release complements Rosenthal's barnstorming Variations on ‘Hush-a-bye Baby’ and his reflective ‘Irish Pastels’ with beguiling Hibernian musings by Stanford and Bax. All the works by Rosenthal receive here their World Première recordings.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     

Archy Rosenthal (1874–1947)
‘THREE IRISH PASTELS’ (1933) (World Première recording)

    
1. ‘The Sad Colleen’  
2. ‘A Slow Reel’  
3. ‘Irish Dawn’  
       
VARIATIONS ON A NURSERY RHYME: ‘HUSH-A-BYE BABY, ON THE TREE-TOP’ (1932) (World Première recording)  
4. Theme: Andante tranquillo  
5. Variation I: L’istesso tempo  
6. Variation II: Allegretto amabile ma non troppo  
7. Variation III: Quasi fantasia à la Godowsky  
8. Variation IV: Nocturne  
9. Finale alla Polacca: Vivo  
       
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924)    
10. BALLADE IN G MINOR, op.170 (1919)  
       

Archy Rosenthal
‘FOUR INTERLUDES (1932) (World Première recording)

    
11. ‘A Dedication’  
12. ‘Valse Russe’  
13. ’Pastorale’  
14. ‘Impromptu’  
       
15. ‘MAUREEN’ from ‘GIRL PORTRAITS’: FOUR SKETCHES FOR PIANO
(World Première recording)		  
       
Arnold Bax (1883–1953)    
16. ‘MOUNTAIN MOOD’ (1915)  
       
Archy Rosenthal    
17. IRISH JIG (1926) (World Première recording)  
       

Walter Beckett (1914–1996)
‘THREE PRELUDES’ (1942) (World Première recording)

  
18. ‘Prelude on a Winter Afternoon’  
19. ‘Prelude of Seven Bars’  
20. ‘Con moto’  
       
Archy Rosenthal    
21. ‘BARCAROLLE’ (1926) (World Première recording)  
       
‘THE FOUR SEASONS’: SHORT SUITE OF CHARACTERISTIC PIECES (1937)
(World Première recording) 		 
22. ‘Gavotte and Musette (Spring)’  
23. ‘Dream Waltz (Summer)’  
24. ‘Red and Gold (Autumn)’  
25. ‘The Lonely Shepherd (Winter)’  
       
Charles Villiers Stanford  
26. NOCTURNE IN G MINOR, op.148 no.1 (1917)  
       
Archy Rosenthal    
27. SIX VARIATIONS ON AN OLD NURSERY RHYME: ‘MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY’ (1926) (World Première recording)  
       
Walter Beckett    
28. ‘GUILFOYLE’S WOOD’ (1926) (World Première recording)  
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