Silencium (Harle 001)
Harle loves juxtapositions - long, silky saxophone notes against the sound of a classical soprano singer, the toll of a church-bell, African percussion rhythms, - that's the background to Silencium, but it's still an album of songs - it's just that Harle makes you reconsider what a song can be.
Terror And Magnificence (Harle 002)
Shakespeare via Elvis Costello, Gothic mysteries, free-jazz, forty saxes playing at once - Terror and Magnificence is a wonderful splicing of ancient and modern.
Spirit Walk (Harle 003)
Harle seems to appreciate the idiosyncrasies of particular singers and players like a jazz conposer does, but he has an overarching vision that sets just the right place for all of it within his scheme of things, - that's why didgeridoos, string orchestras, trip-hop grooves, Andy Sheppard's sax or Sarah Jane Morris's voice can all sound as if they're in a real relationship here, rather than just bolted together.
The Shadow of the Duke (Harle 004)
With Richard Rodney Bennett, Paul Jones, Sarah Leonard and Stan Tracey.
Harle understands both the jazz and classical traditions, and is brilliant at getting musicians of different backgrounds to work creatively together. All that makes Shadow of the Duke a completely different kind of tribute album.
Songs of Earth and Alchemy (Harle 005)
The John Harle Collection
(boxed set of the four)
This collection expresses classical music's symmetry and lyricism through tradtional methods and modern electronics, opens a unigue widow on Duke Ellington, joins sharpend jazz to English folk balladry, and makes trip-hop, decks playing and world-music sound as if they belong together.
- Harle, the Alchemist of Ambient Soundscapes.
The Ballad of Jamie Allan (Harle 006)
A
folk opera with texts by the Newcastle poet Tom Pickard,
it tells the story of the 18th century Northumbrian
piper, royal musician, deserter and horse thief, Jamie
Allan.
Elvis Costello: "Il Sogno"
CD 471 577-2
Ballet after Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Deutche Grammophon
(Reviews) (Il Sogno at Deutche Grammophon)
Shaolin Wheel of Life
SWOL 2004/1
Composed and produced by John Harle
Music from the highly successfull West End show now touring worldwide.
Gavin Bryars - a portrait
Philips 473 296-2
A CD to celebrate Bryars' 60th birthday, it includes Harle's performance of The Green Ray
When I'm Gone
Delphian DCD34026
Harle joins soloists, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and Laudibus to play the music of Richard Allain.
John Harle Plays
Clarinet Classics CC0048
Re-release of the classic Hyperion disc.
A contemporary recital disc of music by Phil Woods, Richard Rodney Bennett, Dave Heath, Edison Denisov and Michael Berkeley.
John Harle's Saxophone
Hyperion
A contemporary recital disc of music by Phil Woods, Richard Rodney Bennett, Dave Heath, Edison Denisov and Michael Berkeley.
Terror and Magnificence
John Harle Decca/Argo 452 605 2
The first album release of John Harle's concert music including songs from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, sung by Elvis Costello; Terror and Magnificence featuring the saxophone duo of John Harle and Andy Sheppard; The Three Ravens song cycle sung by Sarah Leonard; Rosie Blood sung by William Purefoy plus the John Harle Band, Balanescu Quartet, London Voices.
The Ship
WMFF 6058-2
John Harle with Guy Barker, Sarah-Jane Morris, Andy Sheppard and Adrian Utley
John Harle's most rhythmic and danceable album so far features a galaxy of stars from iconoclastic backgrounds as varied as world music, British trip-hop, modern jazz and classical music. It is full of surprises from the gut wrenching sound of the screaming Maoris, and Sarah-Jane Morris' vocalisations to Andy Sheppard's outrageous tenor saxophone solos via Adrian Utley's evocative guitar work and Guy Barker's cool jazz flugel horn. John Harle's compositions evoke a new world of trance-like, tribal, beat and rhythm.
Guided by his own contributions on soprano sax, guitars and keyboards, the album has another worldliness and a hallucogenia seen before in his recent collaborations with Elvis Costello and Sir Paul McCartney.
Silencium - Songs of the Spirit
Decca/Argo 458 356 2
Album of songs by John Harle, many based on his most popular Film and Television themes, including the RTS award winning theme for 'Silent Witness' featuring Amanda Burton.
Sung by Catherine Bott, Sarah Leonard and Nicole Tibbels with the Silencium Ensemble / Choristers of Worcester Cathedral / The Children of New Brighton Primary School, Wirral / The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Songs from A History of Britain
BBC Music WMSF60402
Songs written by John Harle for Simon Schama's BBC 'A History of Britain'
with sopranos Emma Kirkby, Sarah Leonard and Lucy Skeaping, Dominic Burnham (treble), Willard White (bass) - also featuring Elvis Costello.
Illuminare
BBC Music WMEF00632
John Harle's highly popular Mrs Beeton's Christmas Plum Pudding featuring the BBC singers conducted by Stephen Cleobury and actors Eleanor Bron and Charles Collingwood in a nostalgic fantasy played on Christmas day 2001 as radio 4 opened for broadcast.
Flying
Zomba KGB D 004
John Harle's award-winning music to Nissan's world-wide advertising campaign which achieved a number six position in the British Dance Charts. With a creative concept from advertising guru Trevor Beattie and mixed by Simon Cotsworth of Soul 2 Soul, it features John Harle's mid 1990's ensemble "Opera House".
The Shadow of the Duke
EMI Classics CDC 7 54298
John Harle's contemporary album of his own reworkings of compositions by Duke Ellington alongside compositions by himself with guest artists Paul Jones (harmonica) Richard Rodney Bennett (piano) Anne Dudley (arranger) Henry Lowther (trumpet) and Stan Tracey (piano).
John Harle's Saxophone Songbook
Unicorn Kanchana DKP (CD) 9160
Music by Rachmaninov, Corea, Dowland, Machaut, Prokofiev, Birtwistle and Nyman, with John Lenehan (piano), Sarah Leonard (soprano) - recorded in the beautiful church at Orford near Aldeburgh.
Saxophone Concertos
EMI Classics CDC 7 54301
Concertos by Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, Villa-Lobos, Richard Rodney
Bennett and Dave Heath.
Conducted by Sir Neville Marriner with The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. For many, the definitive performances of some of the classics of the saxophone repertoire.
Concertos
Decca/Argo 433 847
Michael Nyman - Where the bee dances
Gavin Bryars - The Green Ray
Mike Westbrook - Bean Rows and Blues Shots
Three new English works for saxophone and chamber orchestra conducted by Ivor Bolton with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta
Sax Drive
Decca/Argo 443 529
Saxophone Concertos by John Harle's long time colleague film composer Stanley Myers, the American minimalist Michael Torke, and Richard
Rodney Bennett's Concerto for Stan Getz premiered by John Harle at the BBC promenade concerts shortly after Getz's death.
Total Eclipse - John Tavener
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907271
John Tavener's apocalyptic vision of the crucifixion of St Paul, with the Soprano Saxophone in the role of St.Paul.
With conductor Paul Goodwin and the Academy of Ancient Music.
The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone - Sally Beamish
Bis-cd-1161
Sally Beamish's acclaimed soprano saxophone concerto for John Harle, depicting the Summer Solstice at Newgrange, a neolithic burial mound outside Dublin. With The Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ola Rudner.
Panic - Harrison Birtwistle
Decca /Argo 452 104
Possibly the most contoversial piece of new music written in the latter part of the twentieth century Harrison Birtwistle's Panic caused a storm when Harle performed it at the Last Night of the Proms in 1995 with Andrew Davis (conductor) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The media frenzy which followed its performance caused Private Eye to change their front cover and a vociferous Anne Robinson to compare John Harle to a character from the soap opera "Coronation Street"!
Frank Martin Ballade
Decca Classics 444 455
Frank Martin's chromatic and challenging Ballade for alto saxophone performed with conductor Riccaro Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.
Ingolf Dahl Saxophone Concerto
Decca/Argo 444 459
Composition teacher to Michael Tilson Thomas, Ingolf Dahl's concerto for alto saxophone and symphonic wind band is a highly virtuosic work in a full blooded American style. With Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor) and players from the New World Symphony Orchestra.
Dominic Muldowney Saxophone Concerto
EMI 7243 5 66528 2 8
Commissioned by the late Michael Vyner, the driving force behind the early London Sinfonietta, the concerto was a result of much collaboration between Dominic Muldowney and John Harle in the National Theatre music department in London and includes inflences from composers such as Kurt Weill. With conductor Diego Masson and the London Sinfonietta
Michael Nyman - Double Concerto
EMI 7243 5 56487 2 3
Nyman's legendary Double Concerto, with John Harle and Julian Lloyd Webber. With The Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Michael Nyman.
A Finer Truth - James Whitbourne
Etcetera KTC 1248
James Whitbourne's 'Son of God Mass', with John Harle on Soprano Sax.
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, conducted by Timothy Brown.
Habanera
Hannibal / Rykodisc HNCD1331
John Harle with John Lenehan (piano) in a recording of music by Bartok, Satie, Gershwin, Villa-Lobos, Richard Rodney Bennett and Poulenc. Produced by the legendary Joe Boyd.
Songs for Alexander
ASV CD WHL 2135
With the Orchestra of St John's Smiths Square, conductor John Lubbock