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: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Songs of Cricket
The London Quartet (Richard Bryan (counter-tenor); Steven Brooks, Mark Fleming (tenors); Michael Steffan (baritone)); Chris Hatt (piano); Alexander L’Estrange (piano); Gary Lovenest (cowbell); Richard Stilgoe, Eliza Lumley, Tim Rice (vocal); Rory Bremner (comedian)
rec. Air Studios, London, 24, 25, 28 February, 1 March 2011
texts included
Full contents at end of review
SIGNUM SIGCD217 [69:00]

Experience Classicsonline



I do not recall an earlier disc devoted solely to songs about England’s great national game. Even the delightful anthology of Victorian and Edwardian sporting songs with Ian Partridge and Peter Savidge (Play the Game – Just Records JUSCD001) had only a single song related to it. The market is therefore wide open for a disc celebrating its various musical facets, although this one was produced too early to take account of the current success of the England team. It casts its net wide and in doing so certainly reveals many aspects of the game. Unfortunately there is a general lack of musical quality or wit in the songs chosen to represent it, and I found listening to it a somewhat dispiriting experience for much of the time.

There are nonetheless some gems here. Warlock’s well-known setting of The Cricketers of Hambleton is a good example of the composer in his hearty vein, while the Village Rondo by Matthew Holst, great-grandfather of Gustav Holst, boasted a front cover making the first link between cricket and music. It has considerable charm. The school songs from Uppingham, Harrow, Eton and so on, and the song about an Eton and Winchester match are entertaining reminders of a time when a link could be and was made between the behaviour expected in cricket and in life in general. The various songs deriving from the Australian cricket scene are amusing and open-hearted. The problems arise with the items intended to be more obviously comic. Sense of humour is a personal thing, and I suspect that I would have enjoyed them much more in the context of an after-dinner entertainment. Heard “cold”, however, they lack any real impact. Singing the rules of cricket as an Anglican chant or the words of a tea towel about cricket as a parody of the style of Arvo Pärt will only be funny if the words can be heard clearly thus pointing the mismatch between them and the music. Following them in the booklet is not sufficient – they must be clearly audible. For the most part they are not. Richard Stilgoe’s diction in his songs is much better but these are not amongst his most successful efforts. The final track, some unfunny impressions of various cricketing voices by Rory Bremner, has little to do with the remainder of the disc and does not seem to belong here.

The London Quartet, once known as Cantabile, do their best with the material they have, although it is hard to see how anyone could make much of the interminable When an old cricketer leaves the crease. Overall, though, I found this disc a disappointment. The field remains wide open for a disc which will properly celebrate the link between cricket and music.

John Sheppard

 

Full contents
Cricket Theme medley (arr. Alexander L’Estrange) [5:24]
The Cricketers of Hambleton (Bruce Blunt/Peter Warlock) [2:42]
Medley of Five School Songs [5:48]
The Summer Game (from Cricket (Hearts and Wickets)) (Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber) [3:39]
Lillian Thomson (Richard Stilgoe) [2:04]
Radnage Cricket Song (Trad. collected by Horace Harman) [2:00]
Four Jolly Bowlers (The Yetties) [2:24]
The Rules of Cricket – a Psalm Chant (The London Quartet/W H Havergal) [2:34]
You’ve got to be a cricket hero (Alf Sherman/Buddy Fields/Al Lewis and Fred Tupper/Cliff Nichols) [2:39]
Jiggery Pokery (Neil Hannon/Thomas Walsh) [3:13]
Village Rondo (Matthew Holst arr. Chris Hatt) [3:41]
Eton and Winchester (R T Warner/F S Kelly) [4:10]
I made a hundred in the backyard at Mum’s (Greg Champion) [2:29]
Australian Cricket Medley (various) [5:42]
The Barmy Army (Richard Stilgoe) [3:21]
That’s not cricket (from At Home Abroard) (Howard Dietz/Arthur Schwartz) [2:26]
Cricket Tea Towel: The Ins and Outs of Cricket (Anon/The London Quartet) [2:19]
Andy Flower Duet (Richard Stilgoe/Léo Delibes) [2:04]
Jerusalem (Richard Stilgoe/Charles Hubert Parry) [1:18]
When an old cricketer leaves the crease (Roy Harper) [7:00]
“Stop it, Aggers!” (Rory Bremner) [2:02]

 

 

 

 

 

 


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






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.