The obvious comparison
of Columbus is with Honegger’s
King David, and Columbus
bears up to this comparison quite well.
The marches and fanfares are of course
brilliant and effectively Iberian in
mood. The songs and marches are easily
as good as those by Honegger, but the
choral music is not raptly contrapuntal
since here the chorus represents Indians
and sailors instead of angels. The narration
sounds a little like a school play,
but I guess there’s not much to be done
when condensing a real radio drama into
a few stentorian mood setters. But heard
as a surround sound SACD the voices
have a startling, almost disconcerting
realism to them making for an arresting
and dramatic entertainment. What is
disappointing is that instead of filling
the listening space, all the sound sources
are on the "stage" and the
rear channels are only ambient sound.
Why bother to record six separate channels
if no use is to be made of them? The
audience-versus-stage perspective is
an artefact of the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries. Many opportunities are missed
in this work for rear channel/front
channel antiphonies, for chorus versus
soloists, speaker versus soloists, singer
versus accompaniment. If all the rear
channels are for is echo, that’s easy
to fake and most players have it built
in.
The 1942 heroics sound
somewhat dated in 2005. Revisionist
history has not been kind to Ferdinand
and Isabella, who rank with Hitler in
their enthusiasm for robbing and murdering
Jews. It now seems likely that Columbus
knew exactly where he was going because
he talked to and read about others who
had gone there before him, but I guess
this is not proven.
The real treasure on
this disk is Hamlet and Ophelia,
twelve minutes of solemn reflective
music gathered from various scenes in
the 1947 Olivier film "Hamlet."
This music was written at a tragic time
for Walton as his friend Alice Wimbourne
lay dying of cancer, so his musical
settings for one of the greatest of
English plays and films achieve a riveting
intensity. One might think that music
just for strings would make little demand
on the recording system, however it
turns out that string sound is one of
the most difficult of all sounds to
record, and the SACD sound is fully
utilised to bring us this music. As
usual lately, the CD tracks are amazingly
close in quality to the SACD tracks
so even if you don’t have an SACD player,
you will enjoy all this music a great
deal.
From the photo in the
booklet we recognise Julian Glover as
the robot tank commander in Empire
Strikes Back. Hollywood loves British
actors to portray evil villains who
destroy and are destroyed without pity.
Let’s hope somebody films some Simon
Brett or Robert Barnard novels with
some really nasty, stupid Americans
in them for a change.
Aside: Producing minor
works by well known composers may be
more commercial than producing major
works by less known composers, HOWEVER,
it would be nice to see Chandos, Hickox,
and the Welsh National Opera turn their
estimable attentions to Sir Donald Francis
Tovey’s "Bride of Dionysus,"
surely the greatest opera in English
by an English composer so far never
once produced in England. The two Edinburgh
productions were received well by critics
and public alike. It was scheduled for
Glyndebourne in 1940, but the season
was cancelled due to the war, and the
work was never re-scheduled. Now that
Peter Shore has engraved the entire
score and parts and produced a full
length MIDI file, one more excuse for
ignoring Bride has been overcome.
I have heard that MIDI file and I can
tell you that this opera is far finer
than much minor English opera that has
been recently so enthusiastically produced.
You deserve to hear it. Tovey deserves
justice. Even the New York critics want
to hear it! Every indication is that
a recording would be a commercial success.
Is anybody listening over there at Chandos?
In Wales?
Paul Shoemaker
BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales/Richard
Hickox 
