"LA BELLE DAME" : Roger Quilter (1877–1953): “THE FAITHLESS SHEPHERDESS”; Frederick Delius (1862–1934): "PETITE SUITE D’ORCHESTRE”; Gustav Holst (1874–1934): "ORNULF’S DRAPA”; Norman O’Neill (1875–1934): "LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI”: Cyril Scott (1879–1970): "THE BALLAD OF FAIR HELEN OF KIRKCONNEL” ; Havergal Brian (1876–1972) (orch. Rupert Marshall-Luck): "LEGEND”; Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847–1935): "COLOMBA". BBC Concert Orchestra | John Andrews (cond.); Roderick Williams (bar.) | Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn).

Description: EM Records is delighted to announce the release of “La Belle Dame”, World Première recordings of turn-of-the-century English Romanticism.   In the decades either side of the death of Queen Victoria, British composers were delighting their audiences whilst also searching for their voices in a world where Romanticism was opening out into the ever-greater harmonic and dramatic possibilities that the twentieth century would bring. This disc brings together some of the most vibrant works of those decades, incredibly all in World Première recordings, with Roderick Williams giving voice to a tradition of large-scale vocal scenes with orchestra that has, sadly, all but disappeared.