At the Open Door
At the Open Door At the Open Door
At the Open Door

Lorna Windsor (soprano)
William Hancox (piano)

In Lorna Windsor and William Hancox's inspiring new collection of English Songs, the many gems include well-loved songs and poems alternated with premiere recordings (in their voice and piano guise) of two song cycles by Carey Blyton, and a third late group. In the cycle of songs Lachrymae (in memoriam John Dowland), and in the two groups of Lyrics - settings of poems from ancient eastern worlds from Greece to China - Windsor and Hancox explore Blyton's expressive contrasts and idiomatic subtleties, hitherto little known by audiences. Peter Warlock's songs enigmatically pass from sentiment to expressive beauty, to wit and drollery, whilst Arnold Bax's one song is a joyful hymn to the long- awaited return of summer, to words by Chaucer. Then E.J. Moeran's choice of poems by James Joyce so perfectly express the charm, magic and sorrow of young love within the natural cycle of the seasons, and John Mitchell's Bright Clouds set verses by the war poet Edward Thomas, which here deal with observations of nature and rural life. Peter Thompson's is a new setting of Robert Burns' famous love poem A red, red rose, and alongside this comes a song utilising lines from that half-playful, half-bitter Swinburne poem, A Match. In this album by composers of the recent past and of the present day, it is significantly apparent that all the music is tonal and resisted the periods of experimentation by various schools and tendencies, surviving these trends, whilst always seeking variety within the tonal system, chromaticism and even bitonality. Through traditionally idiomatic folk or Elizabethan harmonisation, or more recent hues of late nineteenth or early twentieth century, even impressionistic colourisation, woven into and enriching the musical language of these composers, the tradition of English Song lives on and flourishes to the delight of performers and listeners.

£11.99
WHR097CD

Recorded in SMC Records Baroque Hall, Ivrea, Italy on 19th to 22nd November 2024
Recording Engineering, Editing & Production: Mario Bertodo
Total Duration: 71:16
Release Date: April 2025

Lorna Windsor (soprano)The soprano Lorna Windsor has an extensive vocal repertoire, from baroque to contemporary, opera to song. Her song recitals and recordings often include rarer works and gems by lesser-known composers, including the Boulanger sisters and Hindemith as well as the many writers of great English song and poetry.

A pianist and violist, she trained in singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She studied German Lieder in Vienna with Hans Hotter, French mélodie in St. Jean-de-Luz and Paris with Gérard Souzay, and was awarded various prestigious prizes for her song interpretations. Lorna performed with Jörg Demus in Austria and has collaborated for many years with the Italian pianist Antonio Ballista. 

Her opera roles range from Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus to Die Lustige Witwe, and  other Strauss, Lehar and Offenbach roles, in major European theatres. In early music she sang 14th century Troubadour songs in Occitan, sephardic songs, and toured Europe with works by Monteverdi. She has performed Salieri with Franz Brüggen, Bach with Gustav Leonhardt, Così fan Tutte with Claudio Abbado, Don Giovanni with Deborah Warner, in theatres across four continents. Other roles include Verdi‘s Un Ballo in maschera, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Norina (Don Pasquale), West Side Story, Trouble in Tahiti and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. A guest at Glyndebourne, Teatro San Carlo, La Fenice, the Sorbonne, La Sapienza, she also performs chamber music works by Berio, Crumb, Schönberg, (Pierrot Lunaire at the Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Walton (Façade), Messiaen, Kurtág (Kafka Fragments), Weill (RAI), Mahler (RAI), Radio France and the BBC. She is sought after by today’s composers.

Her numerous recordings include songs by Debussy, Cage, Togni, Nadia and Lili Boulanger,  Casella, Ghedini, Pizzetti, Respighi, Malipiero, Mozart, selections of American Song, and various selections of French song and German Lieder.

William Hancox (piano)William Hancox played the piano as a child and won music and academic scholarships to Canford School, going on to study theology as a Scholar at St. John’s College Cambridge. He was heading towards academia before deciding to follow music as a career.

Winning a scholarship to Trinity College of Music, William worked with Hungarian pianist Joseph Weingarten, a student of Dohnányi, Bartók and Kodály. Other major influences were Martin Isepp, formerly Head of Music at Glyndebourne, who helped to shape his approach to art song, and the Hungarian violin pedagogue Béla Katona.

William was fortunate to study and to work at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh and held positions as staff pianist and vocal coach at Trinity College of Music and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for many years.

He has a particular love for the song repertoire. Keenly interested in vocal training, William played for many singing teachers over the years, learning most from the Italian teacher Iris dell’Acqua, whose students he played for and coached for the better part of a decade, leading to a busy practice as a vocal coach with many students now pursuing successful careers.

Although song has been a consistent strand, William has also performed as a soloist and a chamber musician, with concerts in many European countries and in China, where he gave masterclasses, solo and song recitals and two performances of Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande in the Forbidden City concert hall in Beijing.

In recent years, William has pursued music making closer to home, convinced that musicians must be able to put down vigorous roots in their own communities to avoid losing something very precious. He gives frequent local performances, plays for a number of local choirs and ran a chamber music series in his village for many years. All these activities come into focus in the Music Box Wealden project which launched in 2023. It presents an ambitious programme of concerts all over the area and aims to build a community which serves the needs both of music lovers and of the many professional musicians who live locally.

WHR097      View Booklet     UPC: 5060742690605

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