Talking of links to Coleridge-Taylor! Can anyone here supply me with a "link" to the Malcolm Williamson files here?!! I,recently,enjoyed listening to his opera Our Man in Havana (which really does deserve a commercial cd release! Come on Chandos! ;D) and I acquired Volume 2 of Chandos orchestral works series. Incidentally,will we ever get a Volume 3? I can understand Chandos dumping Rufinatscha,but Malcolm Williamson strikes me as an intriguing figure,who deserves a reappraisal and forgiveness,thereby,for his past failings! (Heck! Nobody's perfect!)
I certainly can, and I will send you the link by PM. Meanwhile,
do get the two-disc Hyperion set of the Piano Concertos - they are great! ;)
I have that Hyperion set (as a download) and I heartily concur with Albion's assessment.
Williamson seems to have been largely forgotten now, despite being Master of the Queen's Music and the recipient of several prestigious commissions. In a life and career parallel to Malcolm Arnold, mental instability and alcohol took their toll and there was something of a fiasco over the
Mass of Christ the King, which initially had to be performed incomplete (there are two broadcasts in the archive). However, a great deal of his music has real substance and power, even when writing for modest forces. As I've mentioned, one of my favourite works of his is
The Brilliant and the Dark to a text by Ursula Vaughan Williams written for female chorus and orchestra (also in the archive).
:)
