Gavin Higgins: The Faerie Bride, Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air & Flourishes for solo horn

“From forest floor to lakeside revery, Gavin Higgins is essential listening… Higgins is a masterly setter of text – not unlike Britten in that respect. His lines are singable, the orchestrations sensitive to the voices, and he absolutely nails the emotional content. (The music storytelling had me on the edge of my seat throughout). Marta Fontanals-Simmons’ deep, dusky mezzo-soprano makes for a wonderfully ‘other’ water spirit, with Roderick Williams doing double duty as both the farmer and narrator. The latter’s fluent performance is a gripping masterclass in how to illuminate text, from awe-flecked opening to emotionally drained conclusion… Francesa Simon’s superb libretto is full of atmosphere, which Higgins seizes with both hands. The music ranges from the eerie, oozy sounds of water, through a series of movements suggesting the passing seasons (the lively summer wedding music quotes recognisable folk song), to an ethereal conclusion filled with loss and regret. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is on top form, while the album’s respective conductors – Jaime Martín in the concerto and Martyn Brabbins in the oratorio – are perfectly attuned to Higgins’ characterful and distinctive musical language. Engineering is first-rate, sleeve notes (Gillian Moore) illuminating. In short, an outstanding release.” Editor’s Choice, Limelight [read complete review]

“… the three substantial movements of Gavin Higgins’s Horn Concerto, playing for virtually 30 minutes, are not only ambitious in design but an exemplary demonstration of the composer’s ability to find fresh and compelling ways of working with archetypes familiar from the mainstream classical and romantic traditions.. The short trilogy of Fanfare, Air and Flourishes, written two years earlier, is a hymn of praise to the sonic attributes of an instrument given more thorough inspection in the concerto and that also plays a role The Faerie Bride… Just as the Horn Concerto responds to nature as raw yet magical, so The Faerie Bride exposes the poignant tragedy inherent in human incompatibilities and the rituals that shape human relationships, set to a libretto by Francesca Simon… but with its structural terseness and psychological candour, The Faerie Bride is a fine example of contemporary classical music, which makes this splendid recording something to savour.“ Arnold Whittal, Gramophone

"I deliberately didn’t read my review of The Faerie Bride until I’d finished my listening; nor did I seek out my colleagues’ pieces about the Horn Concerto. However, before listening to any of these performances I made sure I read the booklet essay by Gillian Moore and I’d strongly recommend everyone else to do the same. Not only does Ms Moore give an excellent introduction to each work, clearly signposting all the important things for which to listen out, but in addition she writes about the pieces in a way that made me keen to hear the music... these are excellent recordings of three highly imaginative scores by Gavin Higgins. I hope Lyrita will give us more." John Quinn, musicweb-international.com [read complete review]

"Two of Gavin Higgins most substantial recent works in outstanding performances that reveal the wealth of vivid detail in the writing, with horn player Ben Goldscheider on white-hot form and strong performances from Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Roderick Williams…

There is a complexity and detail to Higgins' orchestral writing that means having this disc gives us leisure to explore these fascinating works in greater detail. And thankfully, there is more to come." Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill  Click here for the full review

"There are reasons why his music so captivates listeners. It's meticulously constructed but not bereft of feeling; it's authentic in its personalized expression yet also capable of connecting broadly. His music doesn't disavow that which came before but also sounds contemporary. Clarity and lucidity characterize the decisions made and the directions taken, but his music's also unpredictable. Like any genuine artist, his works are deeply influenced by the people and places that were integral to his development." Textura, 2025

"This live performance is from the 2023 Three Choirs Festival. The composer could not have hoped for a better performance.  Roderick Williams, as the farmer, tells the tale in retrospect. He is as superb as we have come to expect with his rich tone and clear diction." Paul RW Jackson, MusicWeb International 

"Higgins is able to integrate his influences into a coherent and personal language. It helps that these performers are audibly attuned to this music – not least Marta Fontanels-Simmons as an otherworldly Woman and Roderick Williams as the uncomprehending Man – with Ben Goldscheider a consummate exponent of works for horn. The Three Choirs Festival Chorus characterizes the Villagers with suitable aggression, while Jaime Martin and Martyn Brabbins secure idiomatic playing of real finesse from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales." Richard Whitehouse, Arcana 

"BBC NOW composer-in-residence Gavin Higgins combines dramatic flair with superb orchestral skill and emotional intelligence. All are present here, the forces honed to Ben Goldscheider's solo horn in the Characterful Fanfare, AIr and Flourishes (2021). But it's the latter attribut that perhaps most underpins the success of the orchestral works. Both explore liminal spaces from personal experience and with sensitivity to lived reality while thrilling in musical and imaginative terms. The Horn Concerto (2023) draws on Higgins's upbringing as a Forest of Dean brass bander who turned - albeit ambivalently - to the French horn before becoming a composer. His love of the instrument shines in a paean that at once celebrates and signals enviromental threats to those magice, formative woodlands. Otherworldly shades of Wagner, hunting horns and much else abound in rich, kaleidoscopic textures as the composer emerges brilliantly Pan-like alongside his soloist; Goldscheider arising from and melting into concertante orchestra horns and wider ensemble with agility and stamina..." Steph Power, BBC Music Magazine 

"Gavin Higgins is a rising, imaginative composer, and this album is worth the time of any enthusiast of contemporary orchestral music." Nathan Faro, American Record Guide 

“…Clarity and lucidity characterize the decisions made and the directions taken, but his music's also unpredictable. Like any genuine artist, his works are deeply influenced by the people and places that were integral to his development. As Gillian Moore writes in liner notes, Higgins grew up “in a working class former mining community in the Forest of Dean,” which exerted a profound impact on the music he would come to write. A clear line, for example, can be drawn from the boy who played in a brass band conducted by his grandfather to the adult whose works for horn appear on this new release. It doesn't wholly surprise that a recent work would be titled Cortège for a Coal Mine (2025).

An allusion to another composer emerges during the entrancing opening of “Understorey” in its woozy, Wagner-esque flow of horns and strings (think the opening of Das Rhinegold). With the mass gradually swelling and the orchestra erupting, a path is cleared for the soloist's entrance. Like some thick forest vine, the orchestra and horn entwine thereafter, at one point playfully throwing fragments of melody back and forth and Goldscheider riding the mercurial, percussion-sprinkled orchestral wave with aplomb… While the concise suite Fanfare, Air and Flourishes (2021) might seem a mere supplement to the concerto, it isn't without merit; further to that, it provides a terrific showcase for Goldscheider in being scored for solo horn. Aptly titled, “Fanfare” allows for all manner of brassy bluster; “Air” by comparison finds the horn inhabiting a more plaintive and introspective space.

As commendable as the horn pieces are, it's the forty-seven-minute oratorio that strikes these ears as the grandest statement. Higgins reunited with his The Monstrous Child librettist Francesa Simon for The Faerie Bride (2021), which in this iteration couples mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons and baritone Roderick Williams with the Three Choirs Festival Chorus, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and conductor Martyn Brabbins. Anyone familiar with “The Lady of the Lake” will also therefore know the story of The Faerie Bride, the legend having to do with a water spirit who agrees to leave her realm to marry an earthly man.

No account of the recording is complete without citing the performances by Fontanals-Simmons and Williams, who amplify the emotional dimensions of the work magnificently. They do much to make this remarkable work engage as powerfully as it does.” Ron Schepper, Textura (Jan 2025) 

"The collection of works really provides a deep insight into one of Britain’s most interesting composers. His music is deep and meaningful, with the ability to cast a picture unmatched by his contemporaries." Maureen Buja, Interlude