Gustav Holst Savitri
Ralph Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending
Benjamin Britten Sinfonietta, Op.1
The Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia
and Opera Theater
Glen Barton Cortese, conductor
Jessica Miller, mezzo soprano
Kyu Won Han, baritone
Simon O'Neill, tenor
Ik-Hwan Bae, violin The Lark Ascending
This all English album is a wonderful mix of the known and little known. Gustav Holst's opera in one act "Savitri" is based on an episode from the Indian classic Mahabharta. Holst created this work as a result of an almost obsessive fascination with spiritualism and Asian culture that swept through Europe prior to World War I. Benjamin Britten's Op.1 "Sinfonietta" was written when he was an 18 year old music student and is dedicated to his teacher Frank Bridge. "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams is in his own words "an English landscape transcribed into musical terms." This work is one of the 20th century's most beautiful Pastorales, as set for solo violin and orchestra.
