An interesting programming ploy for an All English Music album, and aside from the two Elgar chestnuts it bravely avoids the expected and exposes us instead to some fine performances and recordings of more unusual music from the other four composers. Even the Benjamin Britten work is one of his oddest – at least in its birth – having been commissioned in 1939 by the Japanese government, but never performed there at that time. It’s three movements taken from the liturgy of the mass communicate not only sorrow but the composer’s dread of the war which was overtaking Europe at the time.
Mark-Anthony Turnage’s work was inspired by the iconoclastic Francis Bacon triptych showing a 17th century Pope screaming. It is brash, intense and mostly atonal. Not exactly what would be expected in a program of 20th century classical works on a British theme. My favorite work on the disc was Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ wonderful Orkney Wedding. The composer discovered these islands off the coast of Scotland in the 1970s and loved them so much he made his home there. He was moved to write the work after attending a wedding on one of the islands, and it is a fairly programmatic piece, ending with the splendor of the rising sun at the end of the festive evening. Though bagpipes are not part of Orkney musical culture, Davies uses one very effectively in the final section of the work.
Maestro Runnicles was born in Scotland, is principal conductor of the San Francisco Opera, and has made several acclaimed recordings for Telarc, including the Carmina Burana and Beethoven’s Ninth. The Atlanta Symphony is in fine fettle in all these works and Telarc’s surround is most immersive.
– John Sunier
