Messages

Stanford's opera Shamus O'Brien is being released on CD in early March, a premiere recording, and I gather Stanford is Composer of the Week in late March, the centenary month of his death. The recording's coming out on the Retrospect Opera label - they've got a sale on at the moment, https://retrospectopera.org.uk/shop/, to mark their 10th anniversary. It's an all-Irish cast (except for the English army officer, Captain Trevor), with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, and David Parry conducting.

Just to supplement that a bit:

This is a very significant premier recording of Stanford's most famous and popular opera, Shamus O'Brien. It will happen early next year with the orchestra of Scottish Opera, conducted by David Parry, with an all-Irish cast (except for the Captain, who is English, and is trying to capture Shamus...).

The opera is a comedy, but is set against the 1798 Rebellion, and has strong elements of drama and pathos. In fact, it was so successful that, paradoxically, Stanford withdrew it, fearing that it would foment anti-English sentiment, but it was brought back into the repertoire after his death in 1924.

The music is lively and extremely accessible; the ample dialogue drives the action forward, and there's an interesting scene requiring Uilleann pipes.

A minimum donation of £25 gets you the CD on release - which will be out in time for the centenary in 2024 - and £75 gets your name in the CD booklet. Higher donations bring more perks of course. Our releases always include at least two contextual essays, as well as the full libretto. Alas, postage is costly, though, so a little extra added on, to go towards postage costs, would be very much appreciated.

You can find more about the project, and also donate, at https://retrospectopera.org.uk/projects/shamus-obrien/ but please just note that though the website works, it is still under (re)development.

The piano concerto and also the Variations for Piano and Orchestra were recorded on the SOMM label, along with Ruth Gipps' piano concerto. https://somm-recordings.com/recording/piano-concertos-by-dora-bright-and-ruth-gipps/
I was told that the heir was so furious when he discovered that Dora had spent all the income from the estate on music projects, rather than maintenance of the house, that he destroyed as many manuscripts as he could. Current family are more interested, but they don't have anything. So alas, money and assets - for once - don't come into it. Not now, at any rate.

This week's BBC Radio 3 Music Matters (December 15th, 12.15 GMT) is to include a feature on the Christmas music of Charles Dibdin, part of the 'Hidden Voices' strand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001m33

Well, each to his own of course - the review in Gramophone reckoned 'As far as the singers go, Mark Milhofer's Raymond is the stand-out: sweet-toned, ardent and agile.' And I too thought he was excellent - the role is a very demanding one, set very high in the voice, and it seems to me he met the challenges both technically and musically.

Interesting! Personally, I like having the dialogue - in this case, especially, since in Nicholas Temperley's 1966 production, it was notable by its absence (well, absence of the original libretto). It does mean I can sit and listen to it through without wondering what's happening between the sections of music.

There's a new re-release of this wonderful 1994 recording, conducted by Smyth's champion Odaline de la Martinez - there have been other re-releases, I know, and these are still available, but they're quite expensive. This one is nicely re-packaged (slimmer! not in a double jewel case), and the booklet's been completely re-typeset and includes a very interesting essay by Christopher Wiley, about Smyth reception in the past 25 years.
There are difficulties over the Amazon listing, I gather, so the one shown there may be the old one - you can tell by the price, though, as this one, released by Retrospect Opera, is probably around the £17.95 mark. It's most easily obtained direct from them, at www.retrospectopera.org.uk.

Retrospect Opera have just released a CD of music by Charles Dibdin, two of his theatrical 'Table Entertainments', The Musical Tour of Mr Dibdin and Christmas Gambols. It looks unusual and interesting.

The Amazon entry reads:
Charles Dibdin (1745-1814) was the leading British singer-songwriter of his age; this is the first album devoted to his songs. Having written and composed the most successful English operas of the 1770s, and achieved fame as an actor and singer, Dibdin developed his own one-man show, allowing him to display all his talents. He called these shows, in which he stood or sat at a piano, 'Table Entertainments'. His songs were written to be presented dramatically in these shows, and Retrospect Opera have recorded the songs as they were originally meant to be heard, in the first ever recreation of the Table Entertainments. The Musical Tour of Mr Dibdin is a shortened version of Dibdin's first Table Entertainment, from 1787, while the main piece, Christmas Gambols, is a complete Christmas show from 1795. Christmas Gambols, a celebration of traditional Christmas games and festivity, offers the fullest picture of an eighteenth-century English Christmas available anywhere. Dibdin's performing voice is brilliantly brought to life by the versatile talents of Simon Butteriss, and he is accompanied on a replica eighteenth-century fortepiano by Stephen Higgins. Full texts of the Table Entertainments are included in the booklet, along with introductory essays by Simon Butteriss, David Chandler and Jeremy Barlow.

There's a special offer on if you go direct to their website, www.retrospectopera.org.uk.

The complete recording of the Boatswain's Mate (conducted by Odaline de la Martinez) was made the top selection in yesterday's Building a Library.

On Saturday March 4 - the whole programme starts at 9am, the Building a Library strand at 9.30. The BBC spiel says:

'Building a Library survey on the music of Dame Ethel Smyth. As part of Radio 3's celebration of International Women's Day, Kate Kennedy explores the music of an underrated English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Smyth showed tenacity and courage in pursuing her career as a composer at a time when this was an unusual path for women. Sir Thomas Beecham visited her when she was in prison for her political activities, and discovered her leaning out of a window conducting with a toothbrush as her fellow inmates marched around the prison yard.'

The music includes extracts from:

Mass in D for soloists, chorus, orchestra and organ
The Boatswain's Mate: Overture
Serenade in D
Concerto for violin, horn and orchestra
Complete piano works
String Quartet in E minor
String Quintet in E major, Op. 1
Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor, Op. 7
The Wreckers Overture
The Boatswain's Mate (from the complete recording)
Double Concerto in A for violin, horn & piano
Four Songs for mezzo & chamber ensemble
Three Songs for mezzo & piano
Lieder, Op. 4
Lieder und Balladen, Op. 3
Cello Sonata in C minor
Moods of the Sea (3)
Entente cordiale – Interlude
Fête galante – Minuet
Two Interlinked French Melodies

Should be an interesting survey.

A new CD from Retrospect Opera - Burnand & Solomon's Pickwick. The first Dickens musical (1889), and G&S-ish (Burnand was the librettist for Cox and Box). Coupled with George Grossmith's curtain-raiser Cups and Saucers, which mocks the contemporary obsession with all things Oriental. Cast is headed by Simon Butteriss. More info at www.retrospectopera.org.uk/Pickwick.html.

It's very different from The Wreckers - it's a comedy for a start, and quite a bit shorter. The recording is in the chamber version, so it has a lighter feel than a full orchestral one. Whether something is any good is always going to be up for discussion, of course, and I'd be interested to read what others think. All Smyth's operas were different from each other, so if you don't think much of one, you might possibly think better of another! Nice to see it recorded, though, so at least you can make an informed decision.

Got that wrong - it's £14.95 _post free_ in the UK, if bought through the website http://www.retrospectopera.org.uk/CD_Sales.html.

The recording also includes Ethel Smyth conducting extracts from The Boatswain's Mate, dating from 1916, as well as her recording of her overture to The Wreckers, from 1930, which makes it a well filled double CD, and very good value (£14.95 direct from the website + P&P).

I hope people will be interested to know that the long-awaited recording of Smyth's Boatswain's Mate has been released.
Of all the early twentieth-century British operas making use of folk music to depict something of realistic rural life, this was the most popular. Smyth's suffragette anthem, The March of the Women, is significantly incorporated into the overture, and nursery rhymes and folk tunes abound in the main body of the work.
More details at Retrospect Opera's website, www.retrospectopera.org.uk - for sale there and via Amazon.co.uk. Nadine Benjamin, Edward Lee, Jeremy Huw Williams, with Odaline de la Martinez and the Lontano Ensemble.