Butterworth: Shropshire Lad (Songs From A Shropshire Lad/ Folk Songs From Sussex) | 
| Creators: Roderick Williams, George Butterworth, Iain Burnside
Label: Naxos
Category: Music
List Price: £5.99
Buy New: £4.23
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1,124
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Running Time: 52 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.8 x 0.4
UPC: 747313242672
EAN: 0747313242672
ASIN: B003NA7GCY
Release Date: June 28, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad | | • | Folk Songs from Sussex | | • | Bredon Hill and Other Songs from A Shropshire Lad | | • | Folk Songs from Sussex |
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| Customer Reviews:
butterworth August 9, 2010
sirrah
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Some of Butterworth's best work.His settings of Houseman's poems from "A Shropshire Lad" are just about perfect. Outstanding quality and expressiveness of the singing and accompaniment on this recording makes it a must for anyone who loves and enjoys classic British song.
A voice of the lost generation August 17, 2010
John Mccartney
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Butterworth's songs have a totemic quality because of his tragic and untimely death in the First World War. He is one of the great "might-have-beens" of English culture. You seem to hear the authentic voice of the Edwardian summer here. The settings of Houseman's eerie poems are well-known, and I have never heard a better recorded performance than this. "On The Idle Hill Of Summer" raises the hairs on the back of my neck! The only comparable recording for me (and I do have half-a-dozen others) is John Shirley-Quirk's from the 1960s, no longer available I believe. Technically this is pretty near spot-on, with the balance between voice and piano almost always just right. There seems to be a very slight hint of a phasing problem when listening on some headphones, but this is to be hyper-critical.
The other songs are settings of poems or English folk songs and, although not in the same league as the Shropshire Lad songs, are interesting, occasionally arresting, and very good fillers indeed. I would prefer the track order to place both the Houseman suites together - as published it doesn't quite make sense - but this is easy to achieve if you buy the mp3 version, or if you programme your CD player to do this for you. Very strongly recommended.
As close to perfect as you'll get...! August 29, 2010
Mr. S. J. Bonsor (Horley, Surrey UK)
George Butterworth is one of those `what might he have done had he lived longer?' composers of which, alas, there are so many. That he was a casualty of the First World War is even more poignant, and it is especially hard to listen to his music without it being tinged with the fact of his tragic death.
Butterworth was by all accounts fastidious and self-critical, to the point of destroying many of his works which he believed were not worthy of preservation. Along with the `what might he have done' we also have the `what else did he write which hasn't survived?'.
What we can be thankful for are some exquisite orchestral rhapsodies which must rank as the finest pieces for small orchestra ever written by an Englishman, together with a small but brilliant cache of song settings which match the highest levels of inspiration with flawless execution of his musical ideas.
This disc features the Housmann settings from `A Shropshire Lad'- how premonitory the `Lads in their Hundreds' of the Boer War seems of the lads in their thousands dying on the Somme!- together with the Folk Songs from Sussex, given an exemplary performance by Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside. It is always a delight to discover a pairing of singer and pianist where the artistic personalities of the performers genuinely meld into a satisfying whole, and this is a disc of the highest calibre.
Highly recommended.
The Loveliest of Songs August 23, 2010
Ms. E. Arkady (UK)
Like another reviewer, I own several copies of Songs from A Shropshire Lad and I can say without doubt that this one brings me the greatest pleasure of them all, these songs are moving and tender and bring tears to the eye. Bredon Hill is just delicious and the Folk Songs from Sussex, quite new to me, a delight. The clarity of the recording is perfect with just the right balance of voice and piano. At the Naxos price you just can't beat this, I'd go as far to say that you can't beat these recordings at any price!
Superb singer in English Song August 21, 2010
J. Wise (London)
Once again Roderick Williams delivers some wonder songs, by Butterworth in this case, in his most beautiful voice and ever incredible clear diction. Surely one of our great singers of today.
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