Bantock: Overture to a Greek Tragedy, etc.

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Written quickly over the summer of 1908 and premièred at that year's Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, Bantock's comedy overture Pierrot of the Minute enjoyed much success before the First... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 7th Oct 2003
Catalogue No: CDA67395
Label: Hyperion
Length: 77 minutes

Bantock: Overture to a Greek Tragedy

Work length17:58

$4.00

$5.00

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

I. [untitled]

Track length4:00

$1.00

$1.25

II. [untitled]

Track length2:20

$1.00

$1.25

III. [untitled]

Track length5:31

$1.00

$1.25

IV. [untitled]

Track length6:07

$1.00

$1.25

Bantock: Christus

Work length6:24

$1.00

$1.25

Elizabeth Connell (soprano)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

VI. The wilderness and the solitary place

Track length6:24

$1.00

$1.25

Bantock: Pierrot of the Minute

Work length12:18

$2.05

$2.50

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

Bantock: The Song of Songs

Work length41:03

$18.00

$22.50

William Prideaux (baritone), Kim Begley (tenor), Elizabeth Connell (soprano)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley

Day 2 No 1. The voice of my beloved! (Shulamite)

Track length2:25

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 2. My beloved spake (Shulamite / Shepherd)

Track length1:56

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 3. Arise, my love, my fair one (Shepherd)

Track length2:54

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 4. Take us the foxes, the little foxes (Shulamite)

Track length3:15

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 5. Orchestral interlude

Track length2:30

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 6. By night in my dream (Shulamite)

Track length3:11

$1.00

$1.25

Day 2 No 7. But I found him whom my soul loveth (Shulamite)

Track length3:25

$1.00

$1.25

Day 3 No 1. The King's gifts

Track length1:05

$1.00

$1.25

Day 3 No 2. The Shulamite

Track length2:17

$1.00

$1.25

Day 3 No 3. The Shulamite is left alone

Track length1:00

$1.00

$1.25

Day 3 No 4. The Shulamite reflects upon her absent shepherd-lover

Track length1:09

$1.00

$1.25

Day 3 No 5. And sees him in a vision on the mountainside

Track length1:34

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 1. Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness? (Watchman / Shepherd)

Track length2:00

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 2. Set me as a seal upon thine heart (Shulamite / Shepherd)

Track length1:43

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 3. Many waters cannot quench love (Shulamite / Shepherd)

Track length1:03

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 4. For love is strong as death (Shulamite / Shepherd)

Track length2:32

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 5. We have a little sister (Shulamite / Shepherd)

Track length3:56

$1.00

$1.25

Day 5 No 6. Make haste, my beloved (Shulamite)

Track length3:08

$1.00

$1.25

About
Reviews
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About

This disc marks the sixth issue in Hyperion's trail-blazing belief in the robust romanticism and musical energies of Bantock. This is music of power and immediacy, inspiration and technical invention that have an often epic dimension. Bantock came from an affluent background and began training as a chemical engineer, but there was no stopping his musical talent. The Wilderness and the Solitary Place is part of one of no fewer than ten segments of a massive Festival Symphony based on the life of Christ, a score completed in 1901 that runs to over 700 pages. The settings from The Song of Songs, constructed as a drama, were perhaps too epic to have frequent performances, and we have world premiere recordings on this present release. All the works on this disc offer perfect examples of that heady brew of eroticism and religion that boiled over in the early 1900s, once again expertly championed by Vernon Handley and the RPO. All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set Bantock: Orchestral Music: What an achievement! Bantock's lavish romanticism is superbly served by both artists and recording team. Discovery after discovery (MusicWeb International).

Reviews

2010

Written quickly over the summer of 1908 and premièred at that year's Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, Bantock's comedy overture Pierrot of the Minute enjoyed much success before the First World War. It's a charming work, and Vernon Handley and the RPO deliver a performance of atmospheric delicacy and wit. Three years later Worcester also played host to the first performance of the Overture to a Greek Tragedy, an imposing curtain- raiser. Handley extracts every ounce of drama and lyricism from Bantock's ripely colourful inspiration; the majestically paced reading attains a moving nobility in the radiant, rather Straussian peroration.
From Bantock's two-and-a-half-hour setting of The Song of Songs (1912-26) come excerpts from three of the five scenes (or 'Days'). The Second Day and love duet from the Fifth Day are thematically related, and frame a purely orchestral sequence from the Third Day. In their respective roles of the Shulamite and her Shepherd lover, Elizabeth Connell and Kim Begley rise admirably to the wide-ranging vocal challenges. Connell also makes an affectionate showing in 'The Wilderness and the Solitary Place', a pretty, gently exotic six-minute aria from the 1907 oratorio Christin the Wilderness. Excellent sound.

Bantock: Overture to a Greek Tragedy, etc.

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