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JANSMUSIC RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Elinor Bennett: Sea of Glass (Môr o Wydr)
LORELT LNT105

John Metcalf: Harp Scrapbook; Arvo Pärt: Pari Intervallo; Robert Ap Huw: Hun Gwenllian; Jeffrey Lewis: Dreams, Dances and Lullabies; Grace Williams: Hiraeth; Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel; Robert Ap Huw: Gosteg yr Halen; Philip Glass: Metamorphosis No.2; Philip Glass: Wichita Vortex Sutra

LORELT was formed in 1992, to promote the work of living composers, women composers of all ages, and Latin- American composers of all periods, and since then they've brought out a catalogue of 12 discs, of which this is the 5th.  I'm a recent convert to harp music, having never considered it as more than nice on the ear, background music. This disc and a couple of others in my collection, and an invitation to a recital earlier in the New Year, have made me realise how much more there is to the harp. 

This recording presents a selection of contemporary music for the harp, and very much breaks away from conventional repertoire, arrangements of piano pieces, and folk melodies to present some really solid repertoire, some ethereal and almost primeval in the sound it evokes. There are some lovely sounds on this CD, with lovely use of the bass strings and their full resonances, and some passages that are almost orchestral in their intensity.  There's a nice mixture of music styles on this disc, culminating in the fantastic Philip Glass tracks which I have to confess I've put on "repeat play" far too many times!