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Tyrrell - Ein Hauch vom Paradies: Choral Music & Piano Works

£14.26

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Label: CPO

Cat No: 5556522

Barcode: 0761203565221

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 6th March 2026

Works

Tyrrell, Agnes

Fantasiestucke (3), WoO
Gesange (2), op.33
Gesange (5) for mixed choir, op.7

» no.1 Voruber

» no.2 Abschied

» no.5 Sommerfruhe

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66
Impromptu no.2 in B minor, op.12
Schlaflied, WoO
Winterlied, WoO

Artists

Kyra Steckeweh (piano)
GewandhausChor Leipzig

Conductor

Gregor Meyer

Works

Tyrrell, Agnes

Fantasiestucke (3), WoO
Gesange (2), op.33
Gesange (5) for mixed choir, op.7

» no.1 Voruber

» no.2 Abschied

» no.5 Sommerfruhe

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66
Impromptu no.2 in B minor, op.12
Schlaflied, WoO
Winterlied, WoO

Artists

Kyra Steckeweh (piano)
GewandhausChor Leipzig

Conductor

Gregor Meyer

About

Agnes Tyrrell, the daughter of a British English teacher in Brno and his Czech spouse, did not have much time to put her creative talent into musical practice. She suffered from heart problems since her youth and was therefore unable to pursue an international career as a pianist. Thus, she dedicated herself to composition at an early age, which undoubtedly was not a pastime but a true calling. We already feel this in the first bars of the Impromptu, with which this first detailed portrait of the artist begins. Here, someone boldly takes the stage without asking permission. This first, extremely flattering impression is followed by the beautifully radiant choruses as well as her fantasias and her Grand Sonata. Ms. Tyrrell picks up the weaving that Chopin and Schumann left behind, spinning her own unique, colourful fabric.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Impromptu no.2 in B minor, op.12
2

Mondnacht, op.33 no.1 (Eichendorff)
3

Im Walde, op.33 no.2 (M Horn)
4

Schlaflied, WoO (L Tieck)
5

Fantasiestück no.1, WoO
6

Fantasiestück no.2, WoO
7

Fantasiestück no.3, WoO
8

Vorüber, op.7 no.1 (E Geibel)
9

Abschied, op.7 no.2 (Heine)
10

Sommerfrühe, op.7 no.5 (E Geibel)
11

Winterlied, WoO (S Dach)
12

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66: 1. Allegro moderato
13

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66: 2. Andante
14

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66: 3. Scherzo
15

Grand Sonata no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66: 4. Allegro moderato

Europadisc Review

Among women composers with origins in the British Isles who made their greatest mark on the continent, Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) is surely the best known. Her training in Leipzig and Berlin helped to ensure that three of her pre-WWI operas received their premieres in Germany. Ten years Smyth’s senior, Augusta Holmès was of Irish descent but born in Paris; she added the accent to her surname on becoming a French national in 1871. In recent years, Holmès’s music has attracted renewed attention, not least with a disc of her symphonic poems on the ever-adventurous CPO label. Now the same label shines a spotlight on a much more neglected figure, just a year older than Holmès: Agnes Tyrrell (1846–1883) was born in the Moravian city of Brno to a Czech mother and English father (who taught English in Brno’s German-speaking community). She grew up speaking English, German and Czech fluently. She also showed musical talent from an early age, giving her first piano recital at the age of nine.

Tyrrell studied piano and composition in Vienna (the latter with Bruckner’s teacher, Otto Kitzler). Poor health meant that she had to abandon her budding career as a pianist, and so she devoted her energies to composition. Her output ranges from an opera, oratorio and symphony (one of the first by a woman composer before 1900) to chamber music and songs, as well as numerous works for solo piano. The new CPO disc, recorded in Leipzig in September 2023, is entitled ‘Ein Hauch vom Paradies’ (‘A breeze from Paradise’) after a text by German poet Emanuel Geibel, and it combines solo piano music with short choral works, both a cappella and with piano accompaniment.

Kyra Steckeweh is the pianist throughout, and she opens with Tyrrell’s Impromptu no.2 in B minor, op.12, a work with a Chopinesque cut but a distinctive charm all its own, with agitated outer sections, a calmer, radiant central section, and a most effective lead-back to the main material. Following this are three pieces for choir and piano: Mondnacht and Im Walde (to texts by Eichendorff and Moritz Horn respectively) demonstrate Tyrrell’s gifts at small-scale composition, unafraid to deploy the voices homophonically, but adept at creating evocative harmonies to convey emotional depth. The setting of Schlaflied (Lullaby) by the German Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck is a more extended piece for male chorus and piano, sustaining interest by using contrasting registers, and includes in its central stanza a lovely tenor solo sympathetically sung by Carl Rowek. Under the direction of Gregor Meyer, Leipzig’s GewandhausChor delivers highly persuasive performances of all three works.

Steckeweh returns for a set of three unpublished Fantasiestücke which range from a mysteriously probing first piece (with some adventurous chromatic progressions), via a hesitant waltz (again with moments of effectively employed chromaticism), to a rousing concluding march with a fantastical central section. Liszt was among those who praised Tyrrell’s piano writing, and while these ‘Fantasy Pieces’ are of fairly modest dimensions, they again show an assured individual voice, capable of a range of expression on a small canvas.

Three songs from Tyrrell’s op.7 set for a cappella mixed choir provide further evidence of Tyrrell’s unpretentious yet highly engaging style. Placed centrally here, Abschied (‘Farewell’, to a text by Heine) is the most expansive, making telling use of different registers, occasional polyphony, plenty of textural variation, and a wonderfully subdued and touching close at the words ‘I was the summer in departure / You were the dying woods’. Another a cappella work, the unpublished Winterlied to a text by Simon Dach, is the final contribution from the Leipzig choir, with all their performances well projected and thoughtfully shaped under Meyer’s skillful direction.

The album closes with Tyrrell’s ‘Grand Sonata’ no.2 in F sharp minor, op.66, her most extensive composition for piano. The first of its four movements is an imposing Allegro moderato of pronounced virtuosity, and with a gripping fugal development section. There are impressively thunderous moments as the movement approaches its climax, but nothing splashy about Kyra Steckeweh’s finely-focussed playing. There’s something almost Beethovenian to the hymn-like simplicity of the recurring main theme in the Andante slow movement, although the way in which it is developed is quintessentially Romantic. Once again, Tyrrell’s unpretentious inventiveness results in a highly memorable piece, matched by Steckeweh’s sensitive pianism. The Scherzo combines moments of Mendelssohnian lightness, flashes of Lisztian devilry, and waltz-like abandon. In its closing bars, the Scherzo pares away its textures for a transition to the closing Allegro moderato, which begins in almost folk-like simplicity.

Like all the works on this enterprising disc, the Sonata deserves to be far better known, and Steckeweh and her colleagues – underpinned by the latest research from Brno as well as the Kapralova Society of Canada – have done Agnes Tyrrell proud. Let’s hope for more music from this neglected figure very soon. High production standards including excellent recording (in the Gewandhaus’s Kleiner Saal) only add to the music’s considerable appeal.

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Tyrrell - Ein Hauch vom Paradies: Choral Music & Piano Works

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

Contents

Works

Artists

Conductor

Works

Artists

Conductor

About

Sound/Video

Paused

Europadisc Review

Also Available

£16.51

£25.71

£25.71

£14.26

£14.26

Condition Information

Condition Information