The Galliard Ensemble‘s recording of a new work by Michael Price has been released and is now available to stream ahead of the album’s release later this year.
The Flowers Left Thick is the first single from The Seasons (1914–18), which presents four chamber works that take inspiration from literary sources written during the First World War, from the poems of Edward Thomas, who died in Arras in 1917, to the reflections of May Wedderburn Cannan in Paris in 1918. The Flowers Left Thick is the first movement of Spring in Steep, 1915, written after Edward Thomas’s poem ‘In Memoriam (Easter 1915)’, in which the Galliard Ensemble captures a growing sense of unease as the realities of conflict begin to settle. The album also includes recordings by Connaught Brass, The Gesualdo Six and the Solem Quartet.
The work was recorded at St Bartholomew’s Church, in Orford, Suffolk, where Benjamin Britten recorded and premiered many of his later works. Price writes of the recording session: “When we arrived the bells were being rung, a beautiful sound, but not ideal for a woodwind recording. We asked what the occasion was, and the Tower Captain said they were ringing a ‘full peal’ (around 3 hours) for one of their number who had recently died… We all sat and listened together and let the music say the things for which, as TS Eliot says, ‘Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden …: “
In their thirty year history, the Galliard Ensemble has worked closely with many of today’s leading contemporary composers, including György Ligeti and with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, on his quintet Five Distances (for their performance at the BBC Proms) which led to their award-winning CD of Birtwistle’s chamber music for winds. Their recording of Spring in Steep, 1915 will be released on the complete album in digital and CD form on 6th November 2026 by The Control Room (in partnership with Believe) in advance of Remembrance Sunday. Alongside the release, vinyl and limited edition artworks and a documentary film by Alex Kozobolis will follow in 2027.