JOHN JEFFREYS (b.1927): Elegy for John Fry, Elegy for a Conductor, Bickleigh Idyll, Poem for End for Baritone and Orchestra (Jonathan Veira [baritone], Philharmonia Orchestra; Paul Bateman), Serenade for Strings (Orchestra da Camera; Kenneth Page), Toby's Dreams and Elegy for Piano (Paul Bateman), Sweeney the Mad and A Lyke Wake Dirge for Baritone and Piano (Veira [baritone], Shelley Katz [piano]).

Catalogue Number: 11M081

Label: Divine Art

Reference: dda 25082

Format: CD

Price: $15.98

Description: Jeffreys was a victim of the modernist culture that existed in the UK under the influence of the enormously influential BBC in the William Glock era, his lyrical blend of English pastoral and Elizabethan polyphony stading little chance of acceptance in such a climate. The orchestral works are especially fine, particularly the setting of Ivor Gurney's Poem for End, with its atmosphere of soulful melancholy, echoes of Grieg and the depths of sadness and pain that Grainger found in folk music as in Lincolnshire Posy and Willow, willow. Elsewhere, as in the more recent Elegy for a Conductor, there are echoes of Vaughan Williams and even Sibelius. The little piano pieces Toby's Dreams are simple and wistful; Jeffreys' substantial song output is represented by two dramatic and ambitious settings of anonymous early texts, both imbued with the spirit of melancholy that pervades much of the composer's music. Texts included.

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