Elgar - Music Makers

ELGAR: The Music Makers
ELGAR: Sea Pictures Op.37
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Toward the Unknown Region

This high quality digital recording of the RMP’s thrilling live performance in the Melbourne Town Hall on 25 May 2014 features the magnificent voice of Liane Keegan, one of Australia’s great contralto voices, along with the combined 200 voice Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Melbourne University Choral Society choirs, and the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic  Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Wailes.

Experience the atmosphere and tension of a live performance of three magnificent English masterpieces. Includes 20 page CD booklet, including artist biographies, photographs and complete list of performers.

“There was also a noticeable balance between choir and orchestra for Vaughan Williams’ setting of Walt Whitman’s poems. Dramatic drum rolls, clean attack from the brass and waves of choral sound, plus some really lovely playing from the front desks of the strings, conjured up the same sense of exaltation as much of Elgar’s music. The bursting forth of glorious melody underpinned by the Town Hall organ made for a thrilling experience that was greeted with cheers from the audience at the end of the work.” (Vaughan Williams Toward the Unknown Region) Heather Leviston, Classic Melbourne, 2014

“With an emphasis on the lower strings and harps and resonant brass in most pleasing combinations, the “movers and shakers” and “dreamers of dreams” wove their spell to create a series of climaxes that tested the endurance of all performers. For sheer stamina they could not be faulted, especially the unflagging soprano line. After all the sound and fury with its cataclysmic outbursts, the final hushed bars maintained their intensity right to the very end in a gorgeous, gentle blend that faded away, leaving an appreciative audience thoroughly satisfied.” – (Elgar’s The Musicmakers) Heather Leviston, Classic Melbourne, 2014