Ivor Gurney rarities

The Bridge Quartet is exploring the chamber music and song of Ivor Gurney. On Monday 28 May 2018 the quartet will be joined by baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Michael Dussek for a performance of Gurney's song cycle The Western Playland and of Sorrow in Dorchester Abbey as part of the English Music Festival. The cycle is being performed in a new edition by Gurney scholar Philip Lancaster. The printed score of the cycle (published in 1926 under the auspices of the Carnegie Trust) has a number of errors in it, and Lancaster has returned to the original manuscripts for his edition. This has been a somewhat complex process, as described in a posting on Philip Lancaster's blog.

The performers will be going into the studio in early June to record the cycle as part of a disc for EM Records which will include a number of world premiere recordings including Gurney's String Quartet in D Minor which was written in 1924/25. The quartet is a rare survival from Gurney's late chamber music, most of which has disappeared, and has had to be re-constructed from surviving parts by Michael Schofield (the Bridge Quartet's viola player) and Philip Lancaster.

Full details from the Bridge Quartet website.