Desert Island Discs

Halesworth U3A Music Approeciation Group discovered the Desert Island Discs of some more of its memebers.

(1) First up, Lynette

• Cesar Frank’s Symphony D Minor played by the Philhramonic Orchestra conducted by Otto Kempler. I couldn’t find this particular recording available online but here is Orchestre National de France, conducted by Leonard Bernstein playing the piece.

• “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holliday. Lynette played the 1941 version from a compilation CD Jazz Greats which features Holliday at her best vocally before her downward spiral.

 

• “Morales Officium” played by Hilliard Ensemble feat. Jan Gaberek.

Not having any awareness of early music and not being a lover of choral pieces, but being a saxaphone fan, this took me totally be surprise and blew me away with its beautiful melding of the vocal and sax harmonies. Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500 -1553) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance period

 

(2) Vanessa’s choices were

• Widor’s  Toccata Symphony 5 Simon Lindley

• Gerald Hoffung’s The Bricklayer’s Lament Sketch from a CD entitled 17 Comedy Classics. I found this recording of most of his 1958 Oxford Union address which includes this tale and this transcript of the tale if you prefer to read or read along.
• Beethoven’s Pastoral by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Von Karajan….here’s a taster  

(3) Next up was Sue with her selection

• Rostropovich and Britten on Cello and piano playing Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata . Not a piece I knew prior to hearing Sue’s extract but I do love the sound of the cello and I liked this very much I have been listening to it a lot since then and to his Complete Decca Recordings

  

• John Playford’s 17th Century dances was unfortunately not able to be played on the day on our equipment. The wiki page has several media links to excerpts, there is instructions for the dances available from his book “The English Dancing Master”, YouTube has a great many recordings available.
• Chopin’s Nocturnes B Flat Minor played by Daniel Barenboim

(4) Finally we had Richard’s choices

• Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas read (of course) by Richard Burton can be streamed in 2 parts on Spotify
• Tasmin Little playing the Brahm’s Violin Concerto with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley again available on Spotify
• John Coltrane’s The Acknowledgement from his A Love Supreme CD for which YouTube has a live recording of part of it!
• Maurice Gendron playing Bach’s Cello Suite  No. 6 which can be listened to on YouTube
• and finally more cello but with a very different touch - Pablo Casals playing Schubert’s "Cello Quintet" , String Quintet in C major (D. 956, Op. posth. 163) in C Major II Adagio