Joseph Spooner

Refreshing the repertoire

Recordings

Most of the works listed here are premiere recordings.

Opalescence
  • including the world premiere recordings of the Cello Sonata and the Scherzo and Adagio by Ruth Gipps

Available from Prima Facie (PFCD171)

At First Light

Francis Pott’s masterly semi-secular requiem for multi-part choir and solo cello.

Available from various outlets, including Presto Music and Naxos (Naxos 8.573976), both of which provide samples. Try track 1 for the beautiful cello introduction and track 7 for the cello working with the choir.

Of Such Ecstatic Sound

• including Sherwood: Concerto for Violin & Cello

BBC Concert Orchestra
John Andrews (cond.)
Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn) | Joseph Spooner (vc)

Available from EM Records (EMR CD047)

Sea-Croon: The Voice of the Cello in the 1920s

• Eric Fogg, Poem
• John Ireland, Sonata
• Cyril Scott, The Gentle Maiden
• Frederic Austin, Sonata
• Greville Cooke, Sea-Croon
• William Alwyn, Two Folk Tunes
• Benjamin Burrows, Sonatina

Listen now:

Eric Fogg, Poem
Greville Cooke, Sea-Croon
Benjamin Burrows, Sonatina, Moderato

Available from EM Records (EMR CD042)

A Land So Luminous: Music by Richard Causton and Kenneth Hesketh

• including Kenneth Hesketh, IMMH

Available from Prima Facie Records (PFCD051).

Alan Rawsthorne : A Portrait

• including Brother James’s Air and the Cello Sonata

Available from Prima Facie Records (PFCD053).

Listen Now:

 Brother James’s Air (excerpt)
 Cello Sonata, first movement (excerpt)

Fame’s Great Trumpet

• Including Think Only This by David Owen Norris
with Mark Wilde (tenor) and the composer

Available from EM Records (EMR CD015)

Percy Sherwood: Complete Works for Cello and Piano

• Sonata no. 1 in D
• Drei Stücke: Legende, Intermezzo, Saltarello
• Sonata no. 2 in A
• Fünf kleine Stücke

Available from Toccata Classics (TOCC 0145).

Listen now:

Sonata no. 1 in D, first movement
Sonata no. 1 in D, second movement
Drei Stücke: Saltarello
Sonata no. 2 in A, first movement

Romantics in England: Music for Cello & Piano

• Walter Macfarren, Cello Sonata
• Michael Balfe, Cello Sonata
• Edgar Bainton, Cello Sonata
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Variations
• Rosalind Ellicott, A Reverie 
• Roger Quilter, To Daisies 

Copies available directly from me via the Contact page, also on various websites Dutton (CDLX 7225).

Listen now

Edgar Bainton, Sonata, first movement
Edgar Bainton, Sonata, third movement
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Variations, final variation
Michael Balfe, Sonata, second movement

Dyson, Chamber Works

• including the Cello Sonata

Now sadly out of print

Listen now

George Dyson, Sonata, first movement

Aaron Copland 1900 – 1990

• including Lament and Poème (cello and piano),
and Vitebsk (piano trio)

Available from Meridian Records (CDE 84436).

Alan Bush, Chamber Music Volume 1

• including Concert-Piece, Two Easy Pieces and Summer Valley (cello and piano), and Three Concert Studies (piano trio)

Available from Meridian Records (CDE 84458).

Listen now

Alan Bush, Summer Valley

Alan Bush, Three Concert Studies, third movement

English Romantic Trios

• Thomas Dunhill, Trio
• Alice Verne-Bredt, Phantasie Trio
• Ernest Austin, Trio no. 4
• Rosalind Ellicott, Second Piano Trio

Available from Meridian Records (CDE 84478).

Listen now

Alice Verne Bredt, Phantasie Trio, opening

Songs from the Ghetto: Chamber Music by Alexander Krein

• including Mélodie (cello and piano), Élégie (piano trio), Poème-Quatuor (string quartet), and Esquisses Hébraïques (clarinet quintet)

Copies available directly from me via the Contact page, also on various websites (ASV CD DCA 1154).

Listen now

Alexander Krein, Mélodie
Alexander Krein, Élégie
Alexander Krein, Esquisses Hebraïques, second movement

Roger Smalley: Poles Apart and Other Chamber Works

• including the Piano Trio, Crepuscule (piano quartet), and Poles Apart (quintet)

Available from NMC Records (NMC D083).

Listen now

Roger Smalley, Piano Trio, second movement
Roger Smalley, Piano Trio, fourth movement

Errollyn Wallen: The Girl in my Alphabet

• including Are You Worried About the Rising Cost of Funerals?
(voice and string quartet)

Available from Avie (Avie 0006).

Howard Blake: Chamber Music

• including the Trio and the Flute Quintet

Available from Meridian Records  (CDE 84553).

Alan Rawsthorne: Canticle of Man

• including Alan Rawsthorne’s unpublished Oboe Quartet No. 1, and Studies on a Theme by Bach (string trio)

Now out of print (ASC CS CD 46).