The Sunlight on the Garden: The Songs of Stephen Wilkinson
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Stephen Wilkinson
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Signature
Magazine Review Date: 10/2017
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 65
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SIGCD516

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
At the Manger |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Birdspeak |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Chapels |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Come away, Death |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Crabbed Age and Youth |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Eternal Summer |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
The Garden |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
The Gate in the Wall |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Grantchester |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Heaven |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
The Hour-Glass |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Joly Jankyn |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Kiss |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Maude Gonne Takes Down a Book |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
O do not love too long |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
The Owl and the Pussycat |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Politics |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Proud Songsters |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Running to Paradise |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Spring and Fall |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
The Sunlight on the Garden |
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer
Stephen Wilkinson, Composer |
Author: Tim Ashley
She herself compares him to Finzi, Gurney and Quilter. There are, however, elements of expressionism in his music, an emotional concentration and a sharp sense of irony that make him at times strikingly original. Yeats features prominently in a choice of poets which ranges from Shakespeare to Auden and MacNeice, though, Coleridge excepted, he seemingly avoids the major Romantics. Settings are rooted in textual detail and accompaniments are succinct, with rarely an extraneous note. There are fine things here. A spectral scherzo summons the ghosts that haunt the vicarage lawn in a setting of Brooke’s ‘Grantchester’, and the text fragments as time runs out in the perpetuum mobile of ‘The Hour-Glass’. The harmonic irresolution of ‘At the Manger’ probes the Virgin Mary’s anguish at the thought of Christ’s future suffering. ‘Politics’ says everything that needs to be said about middle-aged responsibility and erotic regret in just over a minute.
Divided between four singers and two pianists, the songs are persuasively done, too. Clare Wilkinson’s warm tone and quiet restraint in ‘At the Manger’ and ‘Heaven’ contrast with the more overt brightness of Mhairi Lawson, exquisite in ‘Winter Snow’ and ‘Proud Songsters’. Matthew Brook has a nice line in roguish irony, heard to excellent advantage in ‘Running to Paradise’ and the epigrammatic ‘Kiss’. Best of all, perhaps, is James Gilchrist, whose wonderful way with words enables him to encompass the bitter humour of ‘Chapels’, the sweetness of ‘Grantchester’ and the dark lyricism of ‘The Sunlight on the Garden’, a wartime setting of MacNeice that gives the disc its title. Ian Buckle and Anna Markland are the exemplary pianists.
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