This album represents the culmination of what leading British baritone Roderick Williams described as "a dream come true". It features premiere recordings of his orchestrations of songs by Vaughan Williams and other composers associated with him and is released to commemorate those who perished in WWI.
Featuring orchestrations by Williams of his favourite songs from the 20th-Century English repertoire, this album contains works by Vaughan Williams and specially commissioned new arrangements of songs by women composers Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Madeleine Dring and Rebecca Clarke.
The album features also the work of composers who were killed in the First World War, George Butterworth, William Denis Browne and Ernest Farrar and is released to coincide with Remembrance Day. These songs portray the composers’ evocative responses to the poetry they set, and Williams’s orchestrations further convey the songs meaning through highly effective use of orchestral instruments and textures. © Hallé Concerts Society