 | Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim's Progress
Buy new: £29.98 / Used from: £16.99 An excellent recording of an epic drama that occupied Vaughan Williams for decades.
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 | Parry: Soul's Ransom/Lotos Eaters
Buy used from: £6.65 Della Jones puts her heart and soul into it the magnificent "Soul's Ransom" and "The Lotos Eaters", a setting of Tennysons Choric Song. Re-released as "Parry - Choral Works" (B000E3LI9U).
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 | British Composers: Finzi, Holst, Vaughan Williams
Buy new: £3.98 / Used from: £2.77 John Shirley Quirks rendition of Five Mystical Songs is the best on record; and Janet Bakers rendition of the Choral Fantasia is excellent, as is Wilfred Browns' of Dies Natalis.
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 | Delius: Requiem; Idyll; Song of Farewell; A Song before Sunrise
Buy used from: £17.50 Its a pity this is ADD, as the soloists are excellent. The Requiem is perhaps a little harsh even for an atheist requiem; its worth investigating at least for its final movement which is enchanting.
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 | Gerald Finzi - Intimations of Immortality; Dies natalis
Buy new: £12.69 / Used from: £8.28 An incredible setting of Wordsworths brilliant Intimations of Immortality. The EMI recording featuring Philip Langridge is equally good (B00000DOCQ).
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 | Holst-Choral Symphony
Buy new: £4.98 The Choral Symphony is a setting of selected text from various poems by Keats, including the entire Ode on a Graecian Urn. Lynne Dawson is lovely, I only wish Norma Burrowes had recorded it too.
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 | Parry: Invocation to Music
Buy used from: £7.99 Parry set Robert Bridges entire ode; its wonderful. This is the works sole recording and I cannot fault it. Re-released as "Parry - Choral Works" (B000E3LI9U).
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 | Vaughan Williams: Vocal Works
Buy new: £12.69 / Used from: £8.99 Still awaiting a perfect recording, Vaughan Williams Shakespeare setting, Serenade to Music, is very beautiful. Try "A Sea Symphony" as well (B0000AQRYM / B00006AAV7 / B000003F2G / B0000647HN).
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 | Dyson: Quo Vadis
Buy new: £25.39 / Used from: £11.99 |
 | Holst: Hymns from fhe Rig Veda; Two Eastern Pictures; Hymn to Dionysus
Buy new: £13.69 The Choral Hymns uniquely scored and they are dramatic, beautiful, calming and intriguing in turns. The evocative Hymn to Dionysus is a setting of a translation of a text from Euripides The Baccae.
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 | Holst: Choral Works
Buy new: £10.48 / Used from: £8.99 The Cloud Messenger is an impressive and transporting setting of an ancient Hindu tale by Kalidasa. The amazing Ode to Death is a setting of part of a poem by Walt Whitman.
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 | Holst - the Evening Watch
Buy new: £6.79 / Used from: £3.79 A recording of the highest quality - the Holst Singers give a crystal clear and poignant performance. For me, its highlight is the Seven Partsongs (poems by Robert Bridges).
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 | Holst: Choral Ballets
Buy used from: £27.00 Two delightful choral ballets and a tuneful and engaging Old English Ballad for chorus and orchestra.
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 | Bliss: Pastoral/A Knot of Riddles/Music for Strings
Buy used from: £16.99 An excellent recording of his Anglo-Saxon riddles, but for a brilliant Pastoral go for the Chandos recording with Della Jones (B00000IM6R).
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 | Bantock: Sappho and Sapphic Poem
Buy used from: £8.99 The lovelorn world of Sappho: Bantock set to music an adaptation of all that remains of the work of the Greek poetess who lived ca700BC. Susan Bickley is superb.
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 | Bantock: The Song of Songs; The Wilderness and the Lositary Place; Pierrot of the Minute; Overture to a Greek Tragedy
Buy used from: £6.29 A selection from Bantocks lush setting of the biblical Song of Solomon. Now we await a complete recording of his setting of the entire Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
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 | Bantock: Two Choral Symphonies
Buy used from: £14.95 Atalanta in Calydon and Vanity of Vanities: these are choral symphonies in the fullest sense, lacking orchestral accompaniment, but utilising the choir almost as if it were an orchestra.
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 | Holst: Savitri
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £3.50 A vocally original chamber opera in one act; unusual, moving, startling in subject and libretto. "The Dream-City" is a pleasing song cycle orchestrated by Colin Matthews; it needs a better soloist.
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 | Boughton: The Immortal Hour
Buy new: £9.98 This utterly spellbinding opera should never have been forgotten. My Gran remembers it fondly. Beautiful solo songs and marvellous choral songs too.
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 | Purcell - The Fairy Queen / Les Arts Florissants, Christie
Buy new: £19.59 / Used from: £13.87 As expected, Christie, Les Arts Florissants and the singers excel on this recording of Purcell's semi-opera based on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amusing, soothing, exiciting, varied and colourful.
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 | Linley: Ode on the Fairies of Shakespeare
Buy new: £6.79 or B000002ZRR. A wonderful ode "on the fairies, aerial beings and witches of Shakespeare."
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 | Thomas Linley the younger: Music for The Tempest; Overture to The Duenna; Three Cantatas
Buy used from: £6.99 The the storm chorus will blow you away! Like Mozart, Linley possessed a melodic genius. Try Henry Rowley Bishop's Shakespeare settings also (B000062URA).
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 | Boyce: Solomon, A Serenata (English Orpheus, Vol 2) /Mills · Crook · The Parley of Instruments · Goodman by Parley of Instruments Choir
Buy used from: £15.98 A tuneful serenata by William Boyce with lovely singing from Bronwen Mills and especially from Howard Crook.
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 | Haydn: The Seasons
Buy new: £9.98 A pastoral oratorio. Surprisingly, this is the only recording on which it is performed in English. There is one English language recording of The Creation oratorio also (B000004CXT).
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 | O Tuneful Voice
I was surprised to find that Emma Kirkby, whom I rarely appreciate, is delightful on certain songs (e.g. Invocation to Nature); Rufus Müller's is too. Try "The Romantic Muse" also (B000002ZUT).
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