Britannia (Includes Britten's Requiem & Maxwell Davies' An Orkney Wedding)

With the other four works on this disc - Mark-Anthony Turnage's Three Screaming Popes; Sir Peter Maxwell Davis's An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise featuring bagpiper Scott Long; James MacMillan's Britannia; and Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 - this recording presents a microcosm of the vigor of contemporary music emanating from Britain. Britannia, in CD and SACD format, is scheduled for release on October 23.

In speaking about some of the culturally irreverent music on this recording, Donald Runnicles explains that in Britain "being perpetually at odds with the establishment can lead to great bursts of creativity."

Born in the East End of London in 1960, Mark-Anthony Turnage is known for bringing a punk sensibility into classical music. He has worked with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, served as associate composer of the BBC Symphony, and is currently one of two Mead composers in residence at the Chicago Symphony. Impressed by a set of paintings by British artist Francis Bacon in which a classic portrait of a 17th-century pope was deformed into images of the pontiff shouting or screaming, Mr. Turnage composed Three Screaming Popes, his first work for Simon Rattle and the CBSO. Since the CBSO premiered the 15-minute work in 1989, it has enjoyed many performances in Europe and America.

Manchester native Peter Maxwell Davies studied Renaissance polyphony and Indian music and has benefitted from associations with avant-garde music-theater ensemble the Fires of London, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic. In the 1970s he discovered the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland, made one of the islands - Hoy - his home, and began a series of Orkney-inspired compositions. Mr. Maxwell Davies describes An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise, which he wrote in 1984 inspired by the wedding reception of a friend on Hoy, as a "picture postcard." As the wedding guests leave the reception in very bad weather and walk home across the island, the sun rises to a glorious dawn. The sun is represented by highland bagpipes, in full traditional splendor.

James MacMillan was born in Kilwinning, a working-class section of Scotland. He has served as affiliate composer of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, artistic director of the Philharmonia Orchestra's contemporary concerts series, and in 2000 became composer-conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. Britannia has been compared with the music of Charles Ives because of its juxtaposition of allusions to Celtic and English folk music, patriotic tunes such as Thomas Arne's "God Save the Queen," and peaceful interludes, with quotations from Elgar's overture Cockaigne throughout. Mr. MacMillan wrote that the10-minute orchestral fantasy on patriotic themes is a "tapestry of popular melodies and resonant allusions...The imperial themes of Elgar and Arne are thrown into a volatile concoction with others materials - an Irish reel (which becomes a jig), a Cockney drinking song, other march tunes, and a hazy Celtic modality."

In 1939 at the time when Japan had already invaded Beijing and several other Chinese cities, Benjamin Britten, whose antiwar position was well known, accepted a commission from the government of Japan for a short symphony honoring the 2600th anniversary of the ruling Japanese dynasty. He took on the project as an opportunity to earn a commission while expressing pacifist sentiments. The Japanese commissioning committee was not pleased with the result. Although Japan paid the commission, Sinfonia da Requiem was never performed. The work was so personal and intimate that Britten felt embarrassment when it was performed soon after at Carnegie Hall, but it remains one of his most successful compositions on a symphonic scale as well as evidence of his skill at integrating private convictions and public musical expression.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which begins its 63rd season this fall, is one of the few American orchestras with a continuing association with a major record label (Telarc). The orchestra has recorded more than 100 albums on Telarc, winning 26 Grammy Awards. During the 2007-08 season Telarc also plans to release Michael Gandolfi's world premiere Garden of Cosmic Speculation, which was recorded by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in May.

Principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and holder of its endowed Neil and Sue Williams Chair, Donald Runnicles is one of today's most consistently acclaimed conductors of opera and symphonic repertoire. He is also principal conductor of New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, and both music director and principal conductor of San Francisco Opera since 1992. Other recordings with the ASO and Chorus include Grammy-nominated Orff's Carmina Burana, the Mozart Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and an acclaimed recording of works by Strauss and Wagner featuring soprano Christine Brewer.

Scott Long began playing the bagpipes at age 10 in his native Pictou County, Nova Scotia and has become well known for his technical precision and for his fresh interpretations and arrangements of traditional melodies. His list of accomplishments includes gold, platinum, and double-platinum recordings, six East Coast Music Awards, and several Juno Awards.