Helen Jarmany, Simon Crosby Buttle, Angharad Morgan, Sophie Yelland, Julian Boyce, Stephen Wells, Michael Clifton-Thompson, Philip Lloyd-Evans, Martin Lloyd, George Newton-Fitzgerald, Emma Mary Llewellyn, Huw Llywelyn, Jasey Hall, Laurence Cole, Volante Demo Chorus - The War of Wrath: Epic Scenes from The Silmarillion, Part Five

The cycle of epic scenes from The Silmarillion by Paul Corfield Godfrey, drawn from the posthumous writings of J R R Tolkien, was already the largest-scale work of classical music written in Wales in the twentieth century, and has already been recorded by Prima Facie over the course of the last five years.

We are now pleased to release the concluding section of this work, written as recently as 2019-20, to bring to an end Tolkien's description of the history of Middle-Earth in the First Age. The text, as before, employs a wide variety of posthumously published texts by the author with the permission of the Tolkien Estate. It not only features the return of roles and singers familiar from earlier parts of the cycle, but also introduces new characters such as Elrond, Galadriel and the great mariner Earendil who will be familiar to readers of The Lord of the Rings. All the singers are professional artists from Welsh National Opera. Reviewing last year's recording of Feanor, Marc Medwin in Fanfare magazine commented Heretofore I have been entirely ignorant of Paul Corfield Godfrey's work. More's the pity. This is an operatic recording whose singers and the music they perform are completely in tune with the nature of the story and its themes, making me want to hear the other instalments as soon as possible.

Also available:
Feanor [PFCD 178/79]
Beren and Luthien [PFCD 110/11]
The Children of Hurin [PFCD 126/27]
The Fall of Gondolin [PFCD 092/93]