Bantock Thalaba the Destroyer

Tienda Continuing Hyperion's pioneering Bantock series, Vernon Handley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra provide another lavish feast for the senses. Bantock's musical language is heart-on-sleeve Romanticism sometimes colored by Oriental references with, nevertheless, an identifiably English accent. Vernon Handley's passionate advocacy of this music ensures committed performances from the RPO. Hyperion's recording is everything one has come to expect from this company, enabling detail to register fully within a natural perspective. The major part of the program is given over to the extended tone poem Thalaba the Destroyer, but the other items are no less fascinating, from the evocation of the desert at night in the Prelude to Omar Khayyám through to the magically scored, powerful Processional and the Straussian-sounding Prelude to The Song of Songs. Thalaba (1899) shows the clear influence of Tchaikovsky in its expressive and musical vocabulary. It is an involving musical tale worthy of more frequent performance in the concert hall. The disc from the same forces that includes both the Celtic and Hebridean symphonies forms the ideal complement to this recording. --Colin Clarke Críticas Granville Bantock, once a powerful force in the British Musical Renaissance, was a prolific and uneven composer. For much of the past century he had fallen so thoroughly out of fashion it was difficult to find more than a handful of recordings of his works, let alone be sure how well those works represented him. Nowadays – and largely if not wholly due to Vernon Handley's championing of him via a whole series of Hyperion CDs, of which this is the latest – it's possible to exercise some discrimination. So it seems a pity that the Prelude to his extended choral-orchestral setting of The Song of Songs was chosen to open this disc. The work as a whole may be an important one. (Who can say? – none of the vocal portion has been heard since 1936: but the subject ought to have been congenial to Bantock's talents.) Heard on its own, though, the Prelude exudes a solemn, dull decadence. High-minded expression is undone by fleshly chromatics in curious textures, too closely spaced to let in air and yet too thin for languor, where the lines never quite meld enough to create a satisfying harmonic rhythm. In his typically informative and generously researched notes Lewis Foreman (who is credited with 'developing' the programme on this well-filled disc) likens it to the Prelude of Bantock's Sappho song cycle, but that is an altogether finer piece.Everything else is more interesting, and indeed more fun. Histories of the British Musical Renaissance sometimes note (as much for purposes of ridicule as anything) that at the start of his career Bantock planned a cycle of 24 symphonic poems on Southey's fustian Indian epic, The Curse of Kehama. Only two Orchestral Scenes survive of that project, and one of them is here: 'Processional', composed about 1893 and thus the earliest piece of Bantock yet to be disinterred in modern times. It's a spirited essay in barbaric funeral march, with a contrasting trio evoking wives and followers throwing themselves on a dead hero's funeral pyre, in strains only just removed from the Palm Court. Altogether it's a relishable display of rodomontade, as is the largest work on the disc, the ambitious early tone poem Thalaba the Destroyer – composed in 1899, on another Southey oriental effusion. This was last played in public as far back as 1902: a new performing score and parts had to be originated from Bantock's manuscript. 'Processional' and Thalaba both demonstrate the young Bantock's sure and flamboyant command of a large orchestra, with sonorous brass and 'oriental' percussion. They also remind us how strongly the influences of Wagner and the Russian nationalists – above all, Tchaikovsky – were installed at the Royal Academy of Music in the 1890s, where Bantock, Holbrooke and Bax all learned their trade. Quite a contrast to the earnest Brahmsians at the Royal College. It's amusing to note the Tchaikovskyisms in Thalaba, culled from Manfred, Hamlet, the Fourth Symphony and elsewhere. Possibly the piece is too long for its material, but Handley induces the RPO to play as if they believed every bar of it was white-hot inspiration, and when the brass let up from their climaxes, something more personal emerges, notably in the section 'Thalaba wanders desolately amid the tombs'. The dream-like mood here presages some of Bantock's Celtic works based on Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser's Songs of the Hebrides; and 'Caristiona' (1920), the first of a pair of Hebridean Sea Poems, proves a satisfying and quite touching elegy for small orchestra. The Thalaba episode also anticipates the 'Phantom Camel Caravan', an intermezzo with wordless chorus from Bantock's vast setting of Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyám – once his most famous work. While Norman Del Mar's 1979 BBC broadcast of the entire score demonstrated pretty clearly that Omar, with its longueurs and occasional splendours, deserves probably one cracking revival per generation, the 'Caravan', in its haunting quasi-minimalism, is a most original invention for its time. In music such as this, one starts to see Bantock not as a deft exponent of musical fancy dress but rather as a proto-Hovhaness, or even a kind of John Tavener of his time (as, indeed, Tavener is probably the Bantock of ours). With first-rate recording and performances, there is much here for collectors of British music to enjoy. Calum MacDonald -- From International Record Review - subscribe now

Detalles del producto Descatalogado por el fabricante ‏ : ‎ No Dimensiones del producto ‏ : ‎ 5 x 5,75 x 0,45 pulgadas; 3,2 Onzas Fabricante ‏ : ‎ Hyperion Código SPARS ‏ : ‎ DDD Producto en Tienda desde ‏ : ‎ Diciembre 4, 2006 Etiqueta ‏ : ‎ Hyperion ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00005RT4E Número de discos ‏ : ‎ 1 Clasificación en los más vendidos de Amazon: nº345,006 en CDs y Vinilo (Ver el Top 100 en CDs y Vinilo) nº827 en Oratorio de Formas y Géneros Clásicos nº913 en Oratorios de Vocal Clásico y Ópera nº12,741 en Sinfonías de Musica Clásica Opiniones de clientes: 4.2 4.2 de 5 estrellas 8 calificaciones Descatalogado por el fabricante ‏ : ‎ No Dimensiones del producto ‏ : ‎ 5 x 5,75 x 0,45 pulgadas; 3,2 Onzas Fabricante ‏ : ‎ Hyperion Código SPARS ‏ : ‎ DDD Producto en Tienda desde ‏ : ‎ Diciembre 4, 2006 Etiqueta ‏ : ‎ Hyperion ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00005RT4E Número de discos ‏ : ‎ 1

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