Robin Holloway: The Lovers' Well Various Artists - Robin Holloway

• Robin Holloway (b. 1943):
• 1 Holloway: The Zodiac Song 05:47
• Three Songs to poems by Edmund Waller:
• 2 Holloway: Three Songs to poems by Edmund Waller: On a Girdle 02:00
• 3 Holloway: Three Songs to poems by Edmund Waller: Go, lovely Rose 03:25
• 4 Holloway: Three Songs to poems by Edmund Waller: Old Age 02:54
• A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums:
• 5 Holloway: A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums: Overture & Dialogue 02:56
• 6 Holloway: A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums: Ballad 05:08
• 7 Holloway: A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums: First Riddle 01:27
• 8 Holloway: A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums: Finale 01:27
• Souvenirs de Monsalvat:
• 9 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Introduction: Lento solenne – 02:16
• 10 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Sin, Guilt & Suffering 02:54
• 11 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Parsifal & Herzeleide 02:26
• 12 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Flowermaidens – 03:47
• 13 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Kundry, Kiss, Mystic Marriage 05:42
• 14 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Pastorale 04:32
• 15 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Intermezzo – 00:58
• 16 Holloway: Souvenirs de Monsalvat: Pentecost Sarabande 04:35
• Robin Holloway:
• 17 Holloway: The Lovers’ Well 16:07
• 18 Holloway: The Food of Love 04:04
• Total Runtime 01:12:25

Info for Robin Holloway: The Lovers' Well

Words have lain at the heart of Robin Holloway’s music throughout half a century of prolific composing. Released on the day of his seventy-fifth birthday, this album brings together six stellar performers associated with Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge – where Holloway is a Fellow – in celebration of the lyrical and dramatic qualities of his abundant output, as well as its profound symbolism.

The Lovers’ Well draws on a cycle of poems by Geoffrey Hill whose themes – a Spanish castle, amorous longing, carnal guilt, a wound that will not heal – make it a dark brother to Souvenirs de Monsalvat, a ‘waltz-synthesis on themes from Wagner’s Parsifal’ for piano four hands. Violence is barely contained by the formal games of A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums, while radiant beauty imbues two works bringing together all four voices: a mini-cantata on couplets by John Ruskin and a partsong to words by Shelley.

"Like Britten, Holloway is an eclectic harvester of texts with a connoisseur’s nose for those where music can ‘add value’. Mezzo Kate Symonds-Joy makes a compelling case for A Medley of Nursery Rhymes and Conundrums, a pithy, sometimes comic cycle with roots in the late ‘70s. Its laconic immediacy is well served by Edward Rushton’s to-the-point pianism" (BBC Music Magazine)

Clare Lloyd-Griffiths, soprano
James Robinson, tenor
Kate Symonds-Joy, mezzo-soprano
Simon Wallfisch, baritone
Edward Rushton, piano
William Vann, piano

Clare Lloyd-Griffiths
grew up in London and read music at Gonville and Caius Cambridge, where she was a choral scholar, before furthering her vocal studies at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Welsh College of Music where she was a Sir Geraint Evans Scholar. Her operatic roles include Susanna/Le Nozze di Figaro and Adele/Die Fledermaus (Weston Studio, Welsh Millenium Centre) and Madame Herz/Der Schauspieldirektor and Tonina/Salieri's Prima la musica, poi Le parole (Teatro Manoel of Valleta, Malta for the Notte Bianca Festival). Her work as a concert soloist includes Merab/Saul for the Spitalfields festival directed by Laurence Cummings and Exsultate jubilate at St John's Smith Square and Clare has sung as a soloist for the conductors Stephen Cleobury, David Hill and the late Sir Philip Ledger. A committed ensemble singer, Clare performs with many groups and is a member of the much-admired ensemble Solomon's Knot, who perform from memory and without conductor. Recent performances with the group include the Bach Johannes Passion at the Snape Maltings on Good Friday 2017 and the group made their Barbican debut in June 2018 with a programme of Bach motets for 'Bach Weekend'. In addition, Clare is a long-standing member of the renowned choir of the Brompton Oratory.

Kate Symonds-Joy
graduated with a First Class music degree from Cambridge University and a DipRAM from the Royal Academy Opera Course. Concert highlights include Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Sydney Opera House, Rutter's Feel the Spirit at the Barbican, Mahler's Symphony no.2 at Cadogan Hall, Elgar's Sea Pictures with the RPO and Christopher Robinson, Handel's Messiah at Birmingham Symphony Hall, Mozart's Requiem with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Verdi's Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall. ​

Kate cycled to the most northerly inhabited part of the UK to sing Judith Weir's King Harald's Saga in the Shetland Islands' Muckleflugga lighthouse and recently joined the Prison Choir Project to sing the role of Carmen with a chorus of inmates in Dartmoor and Wandsworth Prisons. Kate sings regularly as a core member of Solomon's Knot Baroque Collective, who have appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival, Leipzig Bachfest, Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. ​

Kate has taught the choral scholars of both St. John's Voices and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge since 2014. She appears as soloist on Giles Swayne's Stabat Mater (NAXOS), Strauss' Deutsche Motette (Delphian), Villa Lobos' Magnificat for Contraltino and Choir (Delphian), a CD of Robin's Holloway's song cycles (Delphian) and Bach's B minor mass (Sir John Eliot Gardiner/SDG).

Simon Wallfisch
is in international demand as concert and opera singer.

Notable performances include: DEPUTATO FIAMMINGO/Don Carlo (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 2020 (postponed)), HANNAH BEFORE/As One (London American Music Festival 2021), SANCHO PANSA/Don Quijote (Sommer Oper Festival Schloss Britz, Berlin) FIERAMOSCA/Benvenuto Cellini (Staatsoper Nürnberg 2016) MARCELLO/La Boheme (Teatro Verdi Casciana Terme, Pisa 2016) ESCAMILLO/La Tragedie de Carmen (National Reis Opera, Holland 2013). PELLEAS/Pelléas et Mélisande and ALBERT/Werther (English Touring Opera 2015).

He is amassing a steady output of recordings, including 'Songs by Geoffrey Bush' (Lyrita 2015), Songs by Caplet, Honegger, Milhaud and Ravel (Nimbus 2017), 'Gesänge des Orients' (Nimbus 2018), Songs by Thea Musgrave (Lyrita 2019), Songs by Robin Holloway (Delphian 2019) Schumann Lieder (Resonus 2019), Brahms Lieder (Resonus 2020) and Kowalski Lieder (Nimbus 2021).

He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 2017, performing with the Nash Ensemble live on BBC Radio 3, he has appeared several times at the Oxford Lieder festival, London Song Festival and several venues across Europe including Berlin's Konzerthaus, Hamburg Laeszhalle, the Litomysl Smetena Festival and the Pražské Múzy festival in the Czech Republic.

After studying Cello, he gained a postgraduate diploma in voice from the Royal College of Music in 2006, where he studied with Russell Smythe. In 2006 Wallfisch continued his studies in Berlin (Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik 2006-2007) and Leipzig (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 2007-2009), studying with Dr Favaro-Reuter, and in the Liedklasse of Wolfram Rieger. Subsequently he was engaged at the International Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera House (2009-2011). Teachers have included Raymond Connell and Snezana Brzacovic. Simon currently lives with his family in Berlin.

This album contains no booklet.