EMR CD010 | DETAILS
  EMR CD010
   
  David Owen Norris: PRAYERBOOK
  Peter Savidge (baritone) | The Choristers of
New College, Oxford
The Navarra String Quartet
   
  Released 1 November 2012 | EAN 5 060263 500094
Although celebrated primarily as a pianist and broadcaster, David Owen Norris is also a composer of striking individuality. His oratorio ‘Prayerbook’, written for the first English Music Festival of 2006, is the culmination of a lifetime’s reflection on the Book of Common Prayer and, as its subtitle implies, is concerned with the BCP’s roots in tradition and its potential as a vehicle for changes in religious thinking.
TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
David Owen Norris
PRAYERBOOK (World Première recording)		    
       

Part 1: FAITH
       
1. I. Prelude – God the Father  
2. II. Preface  
3. III. Aria: On Miracles  
4. IV. The Litany  
5. The Clock strikes thirteen  
6. V. Hymn: O God, our help in ages past  
     
Part 2: HOPE
       
7. VI. Fugue – God the Son  
8. VII. Collect  
9. VIII. Calypso  
10. IX. Advertisement  
11. Lord, be Thy word my rule  
12. X. Rubric  
13. XI. The Last Trump  
       
Part 3: CHARITY
       
14. XII. Interlude – God the Holy Ghost  
15. ‘Penlan’  
16. XIII. Canon: In heavenly love abiding  
17. XIV. Aria: On the risk and abyss of love  
18. XV. Amor  
19. XVI. Double Fugue: A Table of Kindred and Affinity  
20. XVII. Chaconne: A Dark Speaking  
21. XVIII. Trinity – God the Three-in-One  
22. XIX. Cadenza for the Organ Pedals  
23. XX. A New World  
24. XXI. Seven-Fold Amen  
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