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Special offer. Robert Saxton: Portrait

James Turnbull, Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew West (piano), Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Clare Hammond (piano), St Paul's Sinfonia, Fidelio Trio, Andrew Morley

Robert Saxton: Portrait
Performances throughout are excellent, and the sound never less than very good… This CD has definitely prompted to me look again at Robert Saxton’s whole body of serious work, and I hope it...

Special offer. Robert Saxton: Portrait

James Turnbull, Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew West (piano), Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Clare Hammond (piano), St Paul's Sinfonia, Fidelio Trio, Andrew Morley

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This release includes a digital booklet

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Performances throughout are excellent, and the sound never less than very good… This CD has definitely prompted to me look again at Robert Saxton’s whole body of serious work, and I hope it...

About

These works by Robert Saxton were written between 2013 and 2019 and represent his continuing journey of exploration in modal and harmonic structures; complex in structure but creating no jarring modernist difficulty for the listener. A mix of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, it features top performers including world-renowned baritone Roderick Williams and equally famous (and now film star) Clare Hammond. Robert Saxton received early guidance from Benjamin Britten and studied with Elisabeth Lutyens, Robin Holloway and Luciano Berio among others. He has received commissions from the BBC (TV, radio and Proms) and many prominent ensembles. Until retiring in 2021 Robert was Professor of Composition at Oxford University and is a Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. Time and the Seasons, for baritone and piano, commissioned by the Oxford Lieder Festival for Roderick Williams and Andrew West, is a song cycle to Saxton’s own texts and is both cyclic and progressive. Suite for violin and piano, first performed at the 2019 Three Choirs Festival by Madeleine Mitchell and Clare Hammond, the performers here, charts a voyage across its five movements leading to a tentatively positive conclusion. Fantasy Pieces, commissioned by the Fidelio Trio, is inspired by Schumann’s Op. 88 as character pieces, regarding both genre and variety of manner. A Hymn to the Thames for solo oboe and chamber orchestra was commissioned by James Turnbull, the St Paul’s Sinfonia and its Music Director Andrew Morley and, during the course of its four linked movements, sets the soloist as both wanderer and river spirit in conjunction with the ‘river’ of the orchestra from source to sea.

Contents and tracklist

I. —
Track length3:31
II. —
Track length3:29
III. —
Track length4:58
IV. —
Track length5:49
I. —
Track length1:39
II. —
Track length3:37
III. —
Track length3:31
IV. —
Track length1:33
V. —
Track length4:25
VI. —
Track length4:59
I. Winter, Still Winter
Track length2:42
II. Spring
Track length1:37
III. Time's Ellipse
Track length2:34
IV. Summer Seascape
Track length1:44
V. Summer Psalm
Track length2:05
VI. Autumn
Track length1:16
VII. The Beach in Winter. Scratby
Track length2:27
I. Awakening
Track length3:26
II. Horizon
Track length3:17
III. Jacob and the Angel
Track length3:16
IV. Bells of Memory
Track length3:28
V. Quest
Track length4:05

Awards and reviews

British Music Society Journal

Performances throughout are excellent, and the sound never less than very good… This CD has definitely prompted to me look again at Robert Saxton’s whole body of serious work, and I hope it may do the same for many others.
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