MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

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


CD REVIEW

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

alternatively
Crotchet

 

Bryn - First Love: Songs from the British Isles
Traditional (arranged by Chris HAZELL)
Carrickfergus [4:10]
Scarborough Fair (with Kate Royal) [3:49]
Cariad Cyntaf (First Love) [3:54]
Loch Lomond [3:55]
Danny Boy (with Ronan Keating) [3:40]
Molly Malone [2:31]
Passing by [3:12]
Blow the Wind Southerly [2:49]
O Waly Waly [2:58]
The first time ever I saw your face [3:51]
Marwnad yr Ehedydd (Elegy to the Lark) [2:53]
My Lagan Love (with Sharon Corr) [4:59]
My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose [3:24]
My Little Welsh Home [2:34]
She Moved Through The Fair (with Sharon Corr) [3:11]
Ae Fond Kiss [3:16]
Bryn Terfel (baritone)
London Voices; London Symphony Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth
rec. AIR Studios, London, December 2007, May 2008
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4777865 [54:36] 

 

Experience Classicsonline


This is a very frustrating disc. For many opera lovers, particularly London-based Wagnerians, Bryn Terfel put himself beyond the pale when he pulled out of Wotan in the Royal Opera Ring in 2007 with very little notice. Since then his appearances on British operatic stages have been more rare, though he still has interesting plans for the season ahead. Crossover albums like this, and one-off appearances like the Last Night of the Proms, have now become Terfel’s staple. He recently suggested in a newspaper interview that he is considering scaling back his career now that he has reached his mid-40s! We must surely find it sad that he seems to have cut himself off from a vast wealth of operatic roles in which we will never hear him. It was with that background that I came to this new collection. This disc is no masterpiece. While there are still parts of it that appealed through even my cynical exterior, it feels like a like a waste of nearly everybody’s talent.
 

In the booklet notes Terfel makes a big deal about what great music these British folksongs are. If that is the case then it is a shame that so many of the arrangements here are so downright odd! Some of them just seem perverse: Loch Lomond, for example, is far too militaristic, and has none of the melancholy longing that this song should surely produce. Molly Malone, similarly, has too many cheeky interventions from the woodwind to allow the song to flow. Similarly, and perhaps most surprisingly, My Little Welsh Home is just plain dull, with none of the heft that appears in the other Welsh numbers so dear to Terfel. It is the English arrangements that come off best: Passing By and Blow the Wind Southerly are gentle and refined, and entirely in keeping with the mood of both music and words. The pronounced role given to the strings helps here too. 

The best number on the disc, however, My Lagan Love, is just lovely. The melody unfolds against a warm, flowing backdrop, and Sharon Corr’s contribution is fantastic. She is a genuine folk musician, an expert in this kind of repertoire, and her solo violin, so different to an orchestral leader, really marks this song out as special. It was entirely appropriate that a musician of her stature should be asked to take part. 

It’s a shame that you cannot say the same of Bryn’s other collaborators. Kate Royal adds nothing to Scarborough Fair, sounding banal and a bit out of place, while the excruciating and entirely misplaced duet with Ronan Keating wrecks Danny Boy. This is symptomatic of one of the problems of crossover: it feels like he has just got in two star names to sell discs while in fact they add nothing to the music. Why on earth didn’t he just sing the songs by himself?! 

So this disc has enough to enjoy, but it just feels like a stocking filler. I’ll listen to it more as an indicator of the great roles which Terfel will never record because he’s too busy spending his energy on projects like this.

Simon Thompson





 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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

 

 


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.