More premieres of Stanford and Parry on BBC Radio 3

[Mark Thomas]

Next week BBC Radio 3 are broadcasting premiere recordings of music by Stanford and Parry.

On Monday 17 January at  14:00 Stanford's Overture in the Style of a Tragedy and the Three Idylls for female chorus and chamber orchestra A Fairy Day will be broadcast. The Ulster Orchestra are conducted by Kenneth Montgomery for the Overture and by Howard Shelley for the Idylls, with the Ulster Youth Choir.

The next day, Tuesday 18 January, at 15:55 Shelley and the Ulster Orchestra and Youth Choir will perform Parry's ballet Proserpine. Before then, at 14:50, Shelley will conduct the Ulster Orchestra in Alice Mary Smith's Symphony in A minor, which he conducted for Chandos a few years ago (but with the London Mozart players).

Time to set your recording equipment up, Albion!

[Albion]

Great news - thanks Mark! I stopped buying the Radio Times long ago so it's great to have advanced warning like this. I'll be hooking up the DAB to the CD recorder (how technology has moved on) this time! 

It must be years since I looked forward to recording anything off-air: hooray for Radio 3 - I won't hear a word said against it! 

[Albion]

In case any interested parties are unable to tune in next week for whatever reason, assuming that the off-air recording goes well, I'll put the following pieces into a British Music Broadcasts folder:

Stanford: Overture in the Style of a Tragedy; Stanford: A Fairy Day; Alice Mary Smith: Symphony in A minor; Parry: Proserpine; Dorothy Howell: Lamia

[Mark Thomas]

Albion, you are a treasure!

[jerfilm]

Thanks, Albion.  Some of us in the Colonies do indeed, have a difficult time tuning into BBC3.  Where would one find the British Music Folder?

Jerry

[Mark Thomas]

It's here. As for tuning in to BBC Radio 3, you could try listening live over the internet. The bit rate is only 128 kbps, but it's no worse than many mp3s and you can easily record it. I do that for many non-British radio stations.

[Albion]

you are a treasure!

Merely an ambassador for something that this country is actually good at (and there aren't many things that fall into that category ) - namely producing fascinating composers and wonderful music! 

[eschiss1]

Now that first part is not true and unduly deprecatory... but off-topic...

[Albion]

Merely an ambassador for something that this country is actually good at (and there aren't many things that fall into that category ) - namely producing fascinating composers and wonderful music! 

Now that first part is not true and unduly deprecatory... but off-topic...

Just remember these words on 27th July 2012 when Boris comperes a 'Best of British' opening ceremony featuring a knobbly-knees competition (courtesy of the 'stars' from Britain's Got Talent) and introducing the new Olympic sport of Relay-Pub-Crawl, the transport infrastructure dies on it's knees and the music of the unsungs is drowned out by the soothing strains of the vuvuzela.   

[Albion]

Back to the topic - these performances are perhaps hopeful signs that somebody at the BBC is actually taking an informed interest in more adventurous repertoire again, as the pieces by Stanford (Overture in the Style of a Tragedy, Op.90) and Parry (Proserpine) are unpublished. Neither the Overture nor Fairy Day, Op.131 has ever been performed as far as anybody is aware. The BBC must have actually gone to the trouble of having parts copied especially for these broadcasts! 

Let's hope that this unwonted flame of enterprise within Radio 3 is not extinguished as quickly as it flared up.

[Mark Thomas]

More likely somebody has sponsored the performances in some way. I've seen no other signs of Auntie suffering a Pauline conversion.

[Albion]

More likely somebody has sponsored the performances in some way. I've seen no other signs of Auntie suffering a Pauline conversion.

Your probably right, Mark! Another thought - sometimes, broadcasts like this have been known to presage commercial recordings. The Ulster Orchestra, as far as I'm aware, has largely dropped out of the recording circuit (remembering the heady Chandos days of the late 1980s and early 1990s).

[Dylan]

Don't forget to make use of the HD Sound stream if you can get it - 320 kps, as distinct from the old 120 or thereabouts!

[Pengelli]

The R3 reception here is awful,so this will be a great help Albion. I may try popping in ye olde cassette though!
I wonder whats come over the Beeb? What with a Rufinatscha Overture,what can we expect next?
Time to write or email them about HB's 'The Tiger's'......again!

[Albion]

In a quite extraordinary week of broadcasts by the Ulster Orchestra, the premiere performance of the 1935 Violin Concerto by Irish composer Ina Boyle (1889-1967) is to be broadcast next Friday afternoon at 3.00 (you can listen to her The Magic Harp, 1920, in Folder 6). Needless to say, the concerto will be recorded and added to the archive! 

There is an appreciation of Boyle's career written by Elizabeth Maconchy here: http://www.michaeljamiesonbristow.com/ina-boyle-1889-1967

You can also listen to a documentary feature from RTE about her here: http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/features/1362580.html