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The George Lloyd Society - Newsletter November 2024

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‍The George Lloyd Society

‍ Newsletter - November 2024

Greetings ‍Visitor ‍

This newsletter is a quick reminder to members about the Ealing Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday 23rd November.

George Lloyd's nephew, business manager, executive producer (and now biographer and newsletter compiler, William Lloyd) will be at the concert so I hope that old friends will come and say hello, and new friends might introduce themselves.

The newsletter also provides an update on the Lyrita Nimbus catalogue of Lloyd's recordings and scores, which continues to grow.

‍In this Newsletter:

1. ‍Ealing Symphony Orchestra - 5th Symphony 23rd November

2. ‍The Lyrita Nimbus Catalogue

3. Assistance with music hire costs. (Repeat item)

‍1. Ealing Symphony Orchestra - George Lloyd, Symphony No 5

“con fuoco, con amore, and sempre cantabile”
(with fire and passion, with love, and always singing)

Event Details

Date: Saturday, 23rd November 2024

Time: 7.00 pm

Location: St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing, W5 1QG

Tickets: Purchase here

The Ealing Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Gibbons, will perform George Lloyd's Fifth Symphony as part of their ongoing complete symphony cycle.

About Symphony No 5 - a Summer of inspiration

Composed in 1947-1948, George Lloyd later described this period as "probably the happiest of my life." In June 1947, George and his wife, Nancy, took a room in Corcelettes on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland, when Nancy was recovering from surgery. Despite their limited means, George recalled the time as idyllic, punctuated by swimming breaks during a heatwave, archaeological investigations in the Lake Village of Neuchâtel, and the steady progress of his composition. In a letter to his father in mid-June 1947, he wrote: "My brain has been sizzling and bubbling for two months—con fuoco, con amore and sempre cantabile."

Completion

On Friday, 13th February 1948, back at their home in Château-d'Oex in the Swiss Alps, he finished the symphony, sharing his excitement with his parents:

"Yesterday, although it was Friday the 13th, was a good day. I finished writing the new Symphony. I don’t know how long that agreeable sensation will last, but I am living in a rosy glow, a hazy mist, or if you want to be rude—a nebulous state of illusion! I hope you will like this new effort. I think you should. It is simpler than the last, not so impersonal—no Arctic storms this time. Now it is finished, I must time it properly. I think it is just under 50 minutes. Although 50 minutes is a fair mouthful, you needn't be frightened that it is a ponderous, great thing."

After a detailed description of each movement, he ended:

"Nancy and I drank a whole bottle of Asti between us. We wished you’d both been there! “

For more on the symphony:

Explore David Hurwitz’s video review for an engaging insight into
"The Glorious George Lloyd Symphony No. 5."

‍

2. The Lyrita Nimbus Catalogue

Recordings: New Issues

Our new publishers, Lyrita Nimbus, have now released ten CD
re-issues of George Lloyd’s music on the Lyrita label, as part of their George Lloyd Signature Edition. These are recordings made under the composer’s baton, previously released by Albany Records, and now assigned to Lyrita.

They are issued in new box set couplings, complementing the existing Lyrita box sets of Lloyd’s symphonies recorded by Sir Edward Downes with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the BBC Northern Orchestra.

The new CD releases come with detailed and comprehensive notes by Paul Conway, offering fresh insights into the music - most of which has rarely been broadcast.

Recordings: Premiere recordings now available.

Extracts from ‘The Serf’ for violin and piano

‘A Miniature Triptych’ for brass quintet

Recordings: Soon-to-be-deleted Albany stock

In the final sale of remaining stock, Albany CDs are available at a substantial discount, with a sale closing date of 1st December 2024, after which they will be deleted from the catalogue.
Use the link below to view the selection.

Recordings: Streaming, Downloads, and Purchase

Spotify and Apple Music both offer complete symphonies, concertos, choral works, and brass pieces.
Presto Music provides a comprehensive selection for purchase.
Naxos Music Library, available through libraries, also hosts recordings of Lloyd’s works for streaming.
Use the link below to view the platforms.

Printed Music: Hire and Sales

Sixty-three of Lloyd’s music scores are now available under the Lyrita imprint, for hire and for sale, including the new ‘Short Pieces for Orchestra’ series, which offers an innovative and cost-effective way of acquiring performance material. The printed works include cleaned and reformatted editions of study scores, full scores, choral works (including vocal scores), a cappella choir pieces, and concertos, with solo parts available. Most full scores are in the composer’s own manuscript, while orchestral parts are made by a professional copyist.

Printed Music: Newly Available:

The first publication of a new typeset edition of ‘Seven Extracts from The Serf’ for Violin and Piano is now available. View the score here.

Lyrita Nimbus: New Horizons

The George Lloyd Society is grateful to Lyrita Nimbus for their care and attention in preparing this extensive catalogue. These releases have introduced Lloyd’s music to a wider international audience and prompted new reviews and commentaries from across the UK, USA, and Europe, offering a retrospective view from 25 years after the composer’s death.

These reviews will be compiled into ‘Reviews’ pages on our website, via these links to reviews of the Symphonies and Piano Concertos.

Reviews of other releases to follow in future newsletters.

Dr. Jurgen Schaarwachter, writing for Klassik.com, summed up the significance of these new horizons:

"George Lloyd was modest and never wanted to be more than he was; he refused to write a biography during his lifetime. He would hardly have expected that his work would now take a moderate but firm place in the music world. The fact that it can be heard more often, both in concert and at home, is a result of the efforts of the George Lloyd Society and Lyrita Nimbus Arts."

In the words of Joseph Bosch, writing in Sonogram Magazine:

"Lyrita once again shows us its ability to surprise the listener with true musical milestones."

Lyrita Nimbus: Links and navigation

For full details, descriptions, audio samples, and catalogue numbers of all new CD releases and publications, visit the Lyrita Nimbus website:
www.wyastone.co.uk

New releases of CDs can be found via the Wyastone menu at

All Labels/Lyrita/Composers L-M

Printed Music Scores are available through Wyastone menu at:

Nimbus Music Publishing/Shop/Composers L-M

Music and Remembrance:

Subscribers to Gramophone Magazine will have seen the recent feature Music and Remembrance - 80 years on from D-Day, which includes a short piece about Lloyd's wartime trauma and his 4th Symphony.

(Behind a paywall, but worth a look if you have a subscription.)

‍3. Note on assistance with music hire costs:

Lyrita has now published new editions of the full scores and the orchestral parts for hire and sale, and they will apply their standard music hire tariff.

Whilst Lyrita Nimbus is committed to enabling performances at all levels, this may not include the level of hire discount which the George Lloyd Society has previously offered to amateur ensembles. We have therefore allocated a proportion of our annual royalties to a George Lloyd Performance Fund, which we intend will replace that discount and lower the cost of music hire in those cases.

Please contact us if you would like to apply for a hire discount from the Performance Fund and we will be happy to assist if we can.

Finally, we have neglected our Instagram. LinkedIn and YouTube channels, (not enough hours in the day) but there is plenty to see and hear there.

We now have a new member of the team who will be trying to put that right, and catch up with the comprehensive social media work at Lyrita Nimbus. We hope to have more to report in the next newsletter.

Thanks for reading to the end, and please do share this wherever appropriate.

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