McCreesh: Silence & Music Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & Players

• Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924):
• 1 The Blue Bird 03:53
• Edward Elgar (1857-1934):
• 2 4 Choral Songs, Op. 53: No. 1. There Is Sweet Music 04:42
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958):
• 3 Silence and Music 05:18
• Herbert Howells (1892-1983):
• 4 The Summer Is Coming 07:34
• Percy Grainger (1882-1961):
• 5 Brigg Fair 02:59
• Ralph Vaughan Williams:
• 6 Bushes and Briars 02:10
• 7 The Winter Is Gone 01:41
• 8 The Turtle Dove 02:58
• James MacMillan (b.1959):
• 9 The Gallant Weaver 06:11
• Jonathan Dove (b.1959):
• 10 Who Killed Cock Robin 08:15
• Percy Grainger:
• 11 The Three Ravens 04:30
• Benjamin Britten (1913-1976):
• 12 5 Flower Songs, Op. 47: No. 4. The Evening Primrose 03:11
• Peter Warlock (1894-1930):
• 13 3 Dirges of John Webster: No. 1. All the Flowers of the Spring 06:23
• Edward Elgar:
• 14 4 Choral Songs, Op. 53: No. 4. Owls, an Epitaph 03:38
• Ralph Vaughan Williams:
• 15 Rest 04:15
• Total Runtime 01:07:38

Info for McCreesh: Silence & Music

Eines muss man dem Gabrieli Consort lassen: Es handelt sich bei ihm um eines der vielseitigsten Vokalensembles überhaupt. Ob Musik ihres Namensgebers, ob Kompositionen aus der Renaissance, dem Barock und allen anderen Epochen, überall fühlen sich die Vokalisten zuhause, und die beeindruckende Diskografie des Ensembles untermauert die große Bandbreite des Repertoires. Seit seinem Durchbruch 1990 mit der Venetian Coronation erschienen mehr als 30 CDs mit Werken von Händel, Berlioz, Biber, Mozart, Bach und vielen anderen. Zahlreiche namhafte Solisten arbeiteten mit dem Gabrieli Consort zusammen, darunter Rolando Villazón oder Magdalena Ko ená. Diesen Facettenreichtum verdanken die Musiker nicht zuletzt ihrem vielseitigen Gründer (1982) und Leiter Paul McCreesh, der sich immer wieder als wahrhaftiges musikalisches Chamäleon präsentiert, das für jedes Genre, für jeden Komponisten das richtige Händchen beweist. Jüngst erarbeitete der Dirigent ein neues Konzertprogramm unter dem Titel Silence & Music und tourte damit mit großem Erfolg durch das Inselkönigreich. Hinter dem Titel verbergen sich so genannte Part Songs, eine in England seit dem 19. Jahrhundert sehr beliebte Form von weltlichen Chorälen für vierstimmigen Chor. Getreu dem Motto Am Anfang war das Wort legt McCreesh erneut größten Wert auf den Liedtext, der für ihn das Vehikel der Musik darstellt. Sehr nobel, sehr feinfühlig und maximal präzise erklingen Part Songs von Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Stanford, Warlock u.a.

Gabrieli Consort
Paul McCreesh, Dirigent

Paul McCreesh
is the founder and Artistic Director of Gabrieli which he established in 1982 and with whom he has toured world-wide and made many award-winning recordings. McCreesh is well-known for the energy and passion that he brings to his music-making, and is especially enthusiastic about working with young musicians and broadening access to classical music; he works regularly with youth orchestras and choirs and is active in building new educational initiatives whenever possible.

McCreesh has guest conducted many of the major orchestras and choirs across the globe, including most recently the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Verbier Festival orchestras, and Berlin Konzerthausorchester, whom he returns to this season to conduct Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts. McCreesh also enjoys regular and ongoing collaborations with Saint Paul and Basel Chamber Orchestras, conducting choral projects with both orchestras in 2016/17, the latter at Menuhin Festival Gstaad.

From 2013-2016 he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon) with whom he conducted a wide range of music from the classical period through to the nineteenth and twentieth century, focusing in particular on symphonic repertoire, oratorio and opera in concert, working closely with the world- renowned Gulbenkian Choir. In 2016/17, McCreesh returns to the orchestra twice to conduct Elgar The Dream of Gerontius and a programme of Satie, Saint-Saëns and Beethoven featuring Gautier Capuçon.

McCreesh has established a strong reputation in the opera house and has conducted productions at the Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Danish Opera, Opera Comique, Vlaamse Opera and at the Verbier Festival. In 2015/16 he conducted Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bergen Opera, and returned to Vlaamse Opera for a production of Idomeneo.

In 2011 McCreesh launched his own record label, Winged Lion, in collaboration with the Gabrieli Consort & Players, Signum Classics and the Wratislavia Cantans Festival, where he was Artistic Director between 2006 and 2012. To date they have made seven recordings, most recently Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, released in 2015. Other highlights include Britten War Requiem (BBC Music Magazine Award 2014), Mendelssohn Elijah (Diapason d’Or Award 2013), Berlioz’s gargantuan Grande Messe des Morts (BBC Award 2012), and a reworking of his earlier Gabrieli disc, A New Venetian Coronation 1595 (Gramophone Award 2013). The Winged Lion recordings build on his large catalogue of recordings with Deutsche Grammophon, which includes the Gramophone Award-winning Haydn Creation.

Gabrieli Consort
are a choir and period instrument orchestra founded and led by Artistic Director Paul McCreesh. We perform and record great choral, vocal and instrumental repertoire from the renaissance to the present day for the widest possible audience, cultivating an international reputation for excellence, innovation and ambition. Our mission is to educate the public, in every sense – to be standard bearers for the highest quality of performance, to explain, illustrate and illuminate the guiding principles behind our performance ideals and to offer first-class performance opportunities to young people through our bold and ambitious education programme, Gabrieli Roar.

Gabrieli’s interpretations strive to recreate the original performances of musical works as far as possible, in the belief that historical performance ideals and knowledge of the old world are essential for creating music anew. We seek to engage with and to explore the links between music from all periods. Through lively music-making, committed research and the production of ground-breaking recordings, Gabrieli’s mission is to challenge common and accepted perceptions of classical music, and to re-invigorate and innovate in order to sustain the relevance of these great pieces of art in the twenty-first century.

Booklet for McCreesh: Silence & Music