C W Orr, born 100 years ago this week, was a countryman composer who spent his whole life outside the musical mainstream, wrote a handful of art songs and little else, yet won accolades from Delius, Bax and Warlock. The turbulent inner depths of Orr's tranquil
Gloucestershire waters found their outlet in settings of his favourite poet, A E Housman. Orr's friend Christopher Palmer presents this centenary portrait, in conversation with Graham Johnson and Eric Sams , two of those who rate Orr's Housman settings among the truest ever made.
Producer David Gallagher