The complete C.W. Orr songbook – vol.1
The first CD in a two-disc series that comprises the complete songs of C.W. Orr (1893-1976).
Mark Stone, the excellent baritone who has planned and sings this comprehensive recital so impressively, is obviously thoroughly at home in this repertoire and I wish I had more space to describe Orr’s fascinatingly diverse accompaniments, which Simon Lepper plays so imaginatively. I recommend these two discs strongly to all lovers of English song and even more to singers, for they will surely find items suitable for expanding their own repertoire. (Gramophone)
More songs by Orr exit, I should say, on this CD than on previous issues put together. They are well promoted by Stone and Lepper in a recording by Richard Sutcliffe in Potton Hall which could not be bettered. (International Record Review)
**** The important thing is that these songs are now available in committed performances. (The Guardian)
Mark Stone has done a real service in unearthing these, and recording them at such a high level. Stone Records is his own label (more and more artists are turning to this approach), and he provides thorough, well-written, and informative notes and complete texts. (Fanfare)
- Along the field
- When I watch the living meet
- The Lent lily
- Farewell to barn and stack and tree
- Oh fair enough are sky and plain
- Hughley steeple
- When smoke stood up from Ludlow
- Silent noon
- Tryste noel
- The brewer’s man
- The Earl of Bristol’s farewell
- Whenas I wake
- Slumber song
- Fain would I change that note
- When the lad for longing sighs
- The carpenter’s son
- When I was one-and-twenty
- Soldier from the wars returning
- When summer’s end is nighing
- ’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town
- Loveliest of trees, the cherry