Following on from two highly praised collections of light-music classics — “Dicky Bird Hop” and “Chasing Moonbeams” — for EM Records, Paul Guinery has quarried his extensive music archive of solo piano gems for a third selection he’s called “Finger Prints”.

Previous generations could identify with the Viennese adage of taking serious music lightly and light music seriously. This was appreciated in the UK as well, with many home-grown composers applying their abundant talents and skills to feed an appetite for music whose primary aim was simply to entertain.

Guinery’s extensive knowledge of the repertoire and his sizeable collection of original sheet-music have informed broadcasts he has made of this repertoire for BBC Radio 3’s flagship “Breakfast” programme. There was an enthusiastic response from listeners clamouring for more, proving that light music is still much appreciated — and missed. “Why don’t we hear this sort of music these days?” was a common response. The genre has been neglected to the extent that, apart from film scores, it barely exists today. High time, then, for a further exploration of its charm, inventiveness and craftsmanship.

For full details of this recording, including a track listing and audio extracts, please visit this page.

A perusal of a catalogue of English-language musical settings quickly reveals the powerful attaction composers have had to the verse of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The poetry is rich in imagery, playing upon the threads of grief, love, redemption, and, perhaps most important to the settings on this disc, inner turmoil. The longer poems present narratives with strongly drawn characters and narrative arcs befitting a song-cycle; it is no wonder that the three composers represented on this disc — Maude White, Arthur Somervell and Liza Lehmann — could not resist setting portions of two of Tennyson’s best-known works, “In Memoriam” and “Maude”.

The former poem, “In Memoriam”, was one of Tennyson’s most popular works during his lifetime, and explores the range of emotions that fan out from the central feelings of grief after the passing of a loved one. Tennyson’s musings on death, eternity, light and darkness suited the morbid obessions of the Victorian era, particularly after the death of Prince Albert and the resulting protracted mourning modelled by Queen Victoria, who was said to have adored the poem. “Maud” is, in its own way, a similarly brooding work, a tale of a young man’s unhealthy obsession with his young neighbour and the ensuing death and madness that results.

This recording offers three World Premières, being the first-ever recording of the four Maude White songs and the first recordings by a tenor of the two significant cycles by Lehmann and Somervell. Full details of the disc, including audio extracts and a track listing, are available on this page.

“Finger Prints” (EMR CD088) and “Splendid Tears” (EMR CD087) are both available for purchase through our online shop — please follow this link .

EM Records is delighted to announce the release of “La Belle Dame” World Première recordings of turn-of-the-century English Romanticism.

In the decades either side of the death of Queen Victoria, British composers were delighting their audiences whilst also searching for their voices in a world where Romanticism was opening out into the ever-greater harmonic and dramatic possibilities that the twentieth century would bring. This disc brings together some of the most vibrant works of those decades, incredibly all in World Première recordings, with Roderick Williams giving voice to a tradition of large-scale vocal scenes with orchestra that has, sadly, all but disappeared. Passionate and radiant and haunting works by Gustav Holst, Frederick Delius, and Cyril Scott are complemented by the urbane wit of Roger Quilter’s setting of “The Faithless Shepherdess” and the stormy turbluence of Havergal Brian’s “Legend”, performed in a new orchestration by Rupert Marshall-Luck. This is a recording that promises to enchant.

“La Belle Dame” (EMR CD085) is now available for purchase by following this link. For more details, including audio extracts, please visit this page.

The masque ‘The Vision of Dame Christian’ was composed in 1909 for the girls of St Paul’s Girls’ School (SPGS), of which the composer Gustav Holst was Director of Music; the words were written by the High Mistress at the time, Miss Gray. Dame Christian was the mother of John Colet, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and founder of St Paul’s School. The masque tells of Dame Christian’s vision for the future of her son’s school and the subsequent founding of the Girls’ School. Holst referred to this masque as “the Masque of St Paul’s Girls’ School” and mentioned that "I value this very highly… it contains my best tune — a solemn march.”

The piece has never been recorded, and we consider that, given the inseparable links with SPGS, it should be recorded at the school and should feature the girls themselves. EM Records therefore proposes to make a recording of this work that fulfils these stipulations and with the current Director of Music of SPGS as the conductor. To maintain the very highest artistic standards, we will also be engaging the London Mozart Players. As well as ‘The Vision of Dame Christian’, the disc will include other works strongly associated with SPGS: ‘St Paul’s Suite’, ‘Brook Green Suite’, the ‘Gavotte’ (which Holst withdrew from the ‘Brook Green Suite’), ‘Seven Choruses from the Alcestis of Euripides’ and ‘The Playground Song’.

The costs of making such a recording, however, will be very high, given the engagement of the London Mozart Players, and in order for the production values to meet EM Records’s high standards. We anticipate costs of £18,000 and we urgently need help to enable us to meet these. We are therefore inviting individuals to subscribe to the disc, and we would be hugely grateful to anyone who can help us in this way. Please visit this page for more details, including a list of benefits.

We are currently working on a new website for EM Records which we expect to be available later this year (2024). The site will have a responsive design — meaning that it will be easier to use on mobile devices — and will also feature a cleaner layout, improved typography, and a more streamlined purchasing process, including the facility to add a disc to the shopping cart directly from its ‘Details’ page. Naturally, a complete overhaul to the website such as this represents will take time to complete; but, in the meantime, please be assured that the current site will remain in service until the new one is ready.

Are you one of our regular supporters, and do you tend to purchase many of our discs? If so, why not sign up as a Foundation Subscriber to EM Records? Foundation Subscribers receive a number of benefits, such as having EM Records discs delivered direct to their door immediately upon release, receiving a pair of free tickets to all EM Records launches and events, and receiving all the benefits due to individual disc subscribers. In return, Foundation Subscribers provide much-needed regular annual income to EM Records, which allows us to plan more securely for the future, as well as the moral support that is important to a small label such as ourselves. A Foundation Subsription costs £120 per year. Visit our online shop to sign up!