OUTRAM, MARTIN/ROLTON, JULIAN/PADMORE, M - Vaughan Williams: Viola Fantasia (Sealed) (CD)

Martin Outram (Viola) and Julian Rolton (piano) play all of the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams for viola and piano. Mark Padmore (tenor) joins them to record Four Hymns for Tenor, Viola and Piano. The Six Studies in English Folk Song, dedicated in 1926 to the cellist May Mukle, were produced in alternative versions for cello, viola, violin and clarinet, all with piano. Folk songs were important to Vaughan Williams, who collected many of them, and this work is based on six of them. This work in turn led on to a Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes for cello and orchestra, dedicated in 1929 to Pablo Casalls. John Lenehan published a piano reduction of the piano part and Martin Outram has adapted the cello solo part for the viola. The Fantasia on Greensleeves derives from VW’s 1928 opera, Sir John in Love. Based on a well-known tune, possibly of the Tudor period, at incorporates another folk song, Lovely Joan. The Four Hymns for Tenor, Viola and Piano date from just before the first world war. Based on texts dating from the 17th to the 20th century (by Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Isaac Watts, Richard Crashaw and Robert Bridges), they are weighty in mood and rise to feelings of religious ecstasy. Martin Outram plays the viola with the internationally renowned Maggini Quartet. He has recorded over 50 discs and has received a Gramophone Award, the Diapason d’Or, a Cannes Classical Award, three Grammy nominations and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music