Anthony Payne: Phoenix Mass
BBC Singers ~ Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
John Poole, conductor
Jane Manning, soprano ~ Jane’s Minstrels
The Nash Ensemble ~ Lionel Friend, conductor
Susan Bradshaw, piano
NMC D159
• Composer, writer, lecturer and broadcaster Anthony Payne was born in London and educated at Dulwich College and Durham University.
• His completion of Elgar’s Third Symphony in 1997 brought him worldwide acclaim and numerous awards, including the Elgar Medal and awards from the South Bank Show and Evening Standard as well as the New York Critics’ Circle. Its premiere recording on NMC is still our best-selling recording (NMC D053).
• Commissions include four major premieres at the BBC Proms and works for the BBC Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta. He has won British Composer Awards for his orchestral piece Visions and Journeys and his Second String Quartet, commissioned by the Allegri Quartet.
• His orchestrations include a suite of Warlock songs, Elgar’s Crown of India, and Vaughan Williams’s Four Last Songs.
Phoenix Mass, written in 1965, was originally to have been a liturgical setting only for school choir but soon turned into something much bigger and more technically demanding. As Anthony Payne elaborated the project he experienced what he recalled as ‘the natural emergence of a new manner – long sought but previously only partly envisaged’ and despite the Medieval and Baroque connotations of its techniques and scoring, and a few passing resemblances to Britten and Maxwell Davies, this is the earliest of Payne's acknowledged works that reveals a completely integrated musical character of its own.
Also on this recording is the Horn Trio, a piece symbolising marital harmony, written in 2006; The World's Winter (1976) for soprano and piano, setting two early poems of Tennyson – Nothing Will Die and All Things Will Die and Paean (1971) for solo piano.
TRACK LISTING
Phoenix Mass 19’59
1. Kyrie 3’32
2. Gloria 4’47
3. Sanctus 6’40
4. Agnus Dei 5’00
BBC Singers · Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
John Poole conductor
Paean 10’34
5. Toccata 4’23
6. Aria 3’56
7. Paean 2’15
Susan Bradshaw piano
The World’s Winter 15’49
8. I Nothing will die 6’41
9. II All things will die 9’08
Jane Manning soprano · The Nash Ensemble
Lionel Friend conductor
10. Horn Trio 16’24
Jane’s Minstrels
Total Time 62'51
Phoenix Mass, Paean and The World’s Winter have been
transferred from LP in the absence of the original masters.
The Horn Trio was recorded live for BBC Radio 3.
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Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879
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