Herald AV Publications

HAVPCD217 – Parry: Songs of Farewell La belle dame sand merci & other part-songs

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) is considered to have been one of the leaders (with Stanford) of the English musical renaissance in the 1880s. In his career as composer, scholar, and teacher, he influenced ‘not only his own students but the whole artistic life of his time’ [Frank Howes]. Despite a full career in public and educational life, Parry was a prolific composer. As well as the choral works for which he is most celebrated, he wrote 5 symphonies, incidental music for 3 of Aristophanes’ plays, significant works of chamber music, more than 100 songs, and some important works for organ.

HAVPCD216 – The Seeds of Love Collecting English Folk Music

The Seeds of Love recreates the wonder and excitement of the early 20th-century collectors of English Folk song, as they searched the country for singers of ‘genuine’ song. The story is illustrated by some of the folk songs themselves, performed either as arranged by the collectors, or in Opus Anglicanum’s own arrangements, or as they were originally discovered: solo and unaccompanied. The programme begins at the formation of the Folk-Song Society in 1898 and ends with the death of Cecil Sharp in 1924.

HAVPCD213 – Anton Bruckner Unaccompanied Sacred Motets

Much of the music on this recording will be well-known to many people: several of the pieces are standard choral repertoire for most cathedral and collegiate choirs. In researching for this CD, however, it was possible to extract various lesser-known works of considerable merit from Bruckner’s choral œuvre.

HAVPCD212 – Mediaeval Carols The Mystery of Christmas Night: Words and music from the Middle Ages

This meditation on the mystery of Christmas night has evolved through annual performances in Wells Cathedral, in which the whole space of the building is used. The materials of the meditation are music and words from the centuries during which the cathedral was being built, and the whole programme was devised by John Rowlands-Pritchard.