John Pickard: Vocal Works
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.TOCC0413

By Eve Daniell, Roderick Williams, and Simon Lepper. By John Pickard. Classical. CD. Toccata Classics #TOCC0413. Published by Toccata Classics (NX.TOCC0413).

The English composer John Pickard (b. 1963) is best known for a series of powerful orchestral works, five symphonies among them. But this album of songs - his complete output for voice and piano to date - demonstrates that he can generate drama on a smaller scale, too. These settings - of two less familiar poets of the First World War, often exploring man's relationship with nature, and a translation of a ninth-century Anglo-Saxon phantasmagorical allegory - encompass a wide range of moods, requiring soaring vocal lines, declamatory authority and the gentlest intimacy, supported by piano textures that can flare up in freewheeling virtuosity.