The Songs of Farewell, to canonical texts by various British poets, were written during World War I and finished shortly before Parry's death in 1918 from the Spanish flu. Of course, he was not planning to get that dread disease, and interpretations that make these unaccompanied choral works too death-haunted may go astray. There is a typically gorgeous recording circulating from the small choir Tenebrae, but this more classical reading by the Westminster Abbey Choir under James O'Donnell may be preferable, even if it must ...
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The Songs of Farewell, to canonical texts by various British poets, were written during World War I and finished shortly before Parry's death in 1918 from the Spanish flu. Of course, he was not planning to get that dread disease, and interpretations that make these unaccompanied choral works too death-haunted may go astray. There is a typically gorgeous recording circulating from the small choir Tenebrae, but this more classical reading by the Westminster Abbey Choir under James O'Donnell may be preferable, even if it must yield to Tenebrae in the matter of text intelligibility: your mileage may vary. O'Donnell has the advantage of being able to produce a sound that's likely to be closer to what Parry had in mind. The work was premiered at the Royal College of Music by the Bach Choir, a giant Victorian and Edwardian body that included hundreds of singers and was at home in the great choral festivals of the era. O'Donnell and the Westminster Abbey Choir pair the Songs of Farewell with typical and rather...
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