Oranges under the Full Moon: Chamber Music by Paul Stanhope – A New Release On ABC Classic

Oranges under the Full Moon: Chamber Music by Paul Stanhope is a new release on ABC Classics, available tomorrow. A renowned composer of choral works, this is Paul Stanhope’s debut album of chamber works. Paul Stanhope’s choral writing was influenced by his time as Musical Director of Sydney Chamber Choir. This album presents his work on a more intimate scale.

The music is described as sensual and yearning, encapsulated in a line from the first of the Three Lorca Songs, ‘Song for the Moon’.

“No-one eats oranges under the full moon / Fruit must be eaten green, ice-cold” Federico García Lorca

These three songs are settings of poems by Federico García Lorca, sung soprano Jane Sheldon. The yearning continues in an arrangement of ‘Dolcissimo Uscignolo’, a madrigal about the ‘Sweetest Nightingale’ by Monteverdi, which is linked to Stanhope’s piano trio of the same name. There is yearning, too, in ‘Agnus Dei – After the Fire’, but of a different kind: this work was written in sympathy for the families of victims of the 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires in Victoria, and the sense of loss, grief and longing for peace is palpable.

Also featurd on the recording are the UQ Chamber Players, Adam Chalabi and Patrick Murphy of the Tinalley Quartet, along with pianist Liam Viney.

Paul Stanhope is an award-winning Sydney-based composer, former Musical Director of Sydney Chamber Choir and currently an Associate Professor in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. Previous releases on the ABC Classic label include Songs for the Shadowland – an album of song cycles for combinations of voices and instruments and Lux Aeterna, a collection of his choral works recorded with Sydney Chamber Choir, which was nominated for an Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) Award for Best Independent Classical Album in 2018.

The performers: Jane Sheldon soprano, University of Queensland Chamber Players: Adam Chalabi violin/ Patrick Murphy cello/ Liam Viney piano

The tracks:

1. Piano Trio No. 2 ‘Pulses’
2. Dolcissimo Uscignolo
3. Piano Trio No. 1 ‘Dolcissimo Uscignolo’

Three Lorca Songs:

4. I. Song for the Moon
5. II. Madrigals
6. III. Song of the Seven Maidens (Theory of the Rainbow)
7. Dawn Lament
8. Agnus Dei – After the Fire

All tracks composed by Paul Stanhope except track 2, which is by Claudio Monteverdi, arranged by for soprano and piano trio by Paul Stanhope

Digital album | Available 8 November 2019 | ABC 0028948189144