MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS


Anthony BOLTON (b. 1950)
A Garland of Carols*
The Gloucestershire Wassail [[3:49]
The Holly and the ivy [3:52]
Lanterns [4:21]
A Kiss for the Baby [4:05]
Sweet was the Song [3:06]
Interlude for Harp [6:20]
There is no Rose [2:31]
Cold December’s Wind [5:36]
Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day [3:09]
I Saw Three Ships [4:17]
Epilogue - The Shepherd’s Carol [3:51]
Cycle of 5 Songs, “Black Sea”** [16:24]
Impromptu for Harp* [8:20]
My Beloved [4:12]
*Sioned Williams (harp); **Richard Edgar-Wilson (tenor); **Fali Pavri (piano)
Oxford Voices/Mark Shepherd
rec. Charterhouse, Godalming, Surrey 25-26 April 2009 and 17 - 18 February 2007; ** The Warehouse, London, 5 June 2009
English texts included
GUILD GMCD 7335 [76:19]
Experience Classicsonline



Anthony Bolton is, in the best - and truest - sense of the term, an amateur musician. By this I mean he is not a professional musician and he composes for the love of it. He wrote some music while a student and now, in recent years, he has returned to composition as he winds down his full-time career. That career has been as one of the leading investment fund managers in the City of London. Having had the opportunity to revive his interest in writing music he has taken things seriously: he had some composition lessons with Colin Matthews and is now a pupil of Julian Anderson. 
I don’t know in what other musical genres Anthony Bolton has written but, on the evidence of this disc, he seems to have a predilection for and a natural affinity with the human voice.

The largest work in this programme is his A Garland of Carols, for high voices and harp. He was prompted to write the settings when his sons were Quiristers at Winchester Cathedral, though both boys had left the choir before the work was finished - it took several years to write and was first performed in 2006. I haven’t seen a score but it sounds as if the writing is never in more than two parts - decani and cantores? The scoring for high voices and harp immediately recalls Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Bolton readily acknowledges Britten’s music in general - a long-time enthusiasm - and that work in particular as an influence.

The work features some lovely writing both for the voices and for the harp. Bolton is clearly a fastidious writer and one who has a great respect for the words he has chosen to set. I’d say that he also has a genuine melodic gift and there are some felicitous ideas in this set of carols. I do have one reservation, however, and this concerns what seems to me to be the fairly restricted emotional range of the work as a whole. Quite a lot of it is reflective and even such a carol as ‘I Saw Three Ships’ doesn’t seem to prompt a particularly joyful setting. By the same token ‘Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day’ is rather reflective; the music never dances and I jotted down in my notes “where’s the energy?” I thought back to Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and. just considering the titles of those pieces reminds one how much more sheer variety and vitality there is in Britten’s collection. For all its merits - and they are several - Bolton’s work contains nothing to match the joy of ‘Wolcum Yole!’ or the drive and excitement of ‘This little Babe’ or ‘Adam lay y-bounden’.

I also wonder if the piece is limited by the two-part writing? When we hear the very last work on the disc, My Beloved, that’s written for four-part mixed choir and the much greater tonal and harmonic richness is very welcome. It’s possible also that A Garland of Carols might make a better impact sung by the treble voices for whom it was conceived. I mean no implied criticism here of the ladies of Oxford Voices, who sing the piece very well indeed, but sopranos inevitably lack the edge and, dare one say it, the youthful exuberance of trebles.

Given the melodic appeal of A Garland of Carols I was somewhat disappointed that this wasn’t more obviously carried over into Black Sea. This is a cycle of five poems by the Canadian poet, Mark Strand (b. 1934). I don’t know - we aren’t told - whether this is a later work than A Garland of Carols but it’s certainly stronger meat. In general the vocal line is quite angular - certainly more so than in the carol settings - and quite often the piano writing is fairly spare - in the fourth song, ‘Storm’, however, it’s very agitated for the most part. The most approachable of the set is the third song, ‘My Name’, which is slow and atmospheric - and very well sung by Richard Edgar-Wilson. This fine song has genuine emotional depth. Like its companions the song is serious in tone. Perhaps the poetry of Mark Strand is generally serious but I feel it would have been to the benefit of the cycle if Anthony Bolton had provided at least one lighter setting. As it is I found this collection of songs was something to respect rather than love. Richard Edgar-Wilson and pianist Fali Pavri are committed advocates.

The Interlude for Harp was written especially for this recording. It’s based on the octatonic scale. Of course, because it’s written for harp the piece contains many lovely sounds - and not a few glissandi. But it’s actually quite a dark piece and Sioned Williams, the principal harpist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, plays it with refinement and no little power.

As I indicated earlier, the final piece, My Beloved, taps a richer vein in Bolton’s musical vocabulary. Written in 2007 for his daughter’s wedding, it’s a setting of famous words from the Old Testament Song of Solomon. Here the harmonies are warm, full and rich. As befits the text, this piece contains some of the most sensuous music on the disc. The work has recently been published and it’s worthy of the attention of other choirs.

Oxford Voices, under the capable direction of Mark Shepherd, serve Anthony Bolton’s music well, as do the other performers on this disc. These well-presented recordings should help to bring his music to the attention of a wider public.

John Quinn

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.