Granville Bantock (1868-1946)

Started by vandermolen, April 19, 2007, 04:30:33 AM

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Wanderer

Excellent post indeed, Lethe. I second the observation about the "depth of atmosphere"; a characteristic of Bantock throughout his output.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Dundonnell on June 10, 2009, 04:00:34 PM
Excellent post :)

Seconded.

And I love that Sapphic CD, too. In spite of the (acceptably erotic) cover, I find the music quite chaste and pure, though warm. I don't find Bantock as voluptuous as Scriabin (or Bax in his wilder, undoubtedly Harriet Cohen-inspired moods).

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Lethevich

Indeed, the Sapphic Poem never quite goes into the Dance of the Seven Veils territory that the cover perhaps alludes to...
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Lethevich

How do the Bantock fans here rate his works in relation to each other? Do you find a consistency in his output, or that certain works are simply better than others?

I notice that the more I listen to his symphonies, the more the Pagan Symphony seems to be the weakest of the lot. It has dazzling effects, as usual, but once or twice approaches crudeness, and also the sense of cohesion between sections - especially when compared to the Celtic Symphony - is not to be found...
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

J.Z. Herrenberg

#64
I can't answer your question, Sarah, I still have to listen to the Pagan Symphony, which I'll do asap. But I have been listening to that Handley recording (you know, the one with the Hebridean and the Celtic you infected me with) several times already today - terrific music, which I think I only now can follow completely. I had forgotten how grand Bantock can be (movements 5, 6 and 8 in the Hebridean!) And the Celtic is utterly ravishing, with one passage presaging one major motif from the 'Lord of the Rings' score!
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Lethevich

Quote from: Jezetha on September 15, 2009, 05:12:19 AM
And the Celtic is utterly ravishing, with one passage presaging one major motif from the 'Lord of the Rings' score!

Indeed, I felt there were many "filmic" gestures in the music - also several hints towards Sibelius's 3rd too, although I suspect this impression may be somewhat artificially imposed due to knowing Bantock was the dedicatee for the 3rd...
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

vandermolen

I rather like the Pagan Symphony - a sprawling but very atmospheric work with a great ending.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

haydnguy

It's good to see that others have been listening to Bantock lately as well.

I have just had a "first listen" of all the disks in the hyperion 6-CD set. I am quite impressed with Bantock's music and am going to keep him on my "heavy rotation list" for awhile. My favorite CD's of the lot were 1) the one with the Hebridean Symphony and Celtic Symphony, and 2) the one with Sapphic Poem. Susan Bickley does an outstanding job with the vocals as a mezzo in teh Sapphic Poem. Going to give each disk several more listens and will come back and express further thoughts on them.

vandermolen

Quote from: haydnguy on September 18, 2009, 12:28:30 AM
It's good to see that others have been listening to Bantock lately as well.

I have just had a "first listen" of all the disks in the hyperion 6-CD set. I am quite impressed with Bantock's music and am going to keep him on my "heavy rotation list" for awhile. My favorite CD's of the lot were 1) the one with the Hebridean Symphony and Celtic Symphony, and 2) the one with Sapphic Poem. Susan Bickley does an outstanding job with the vocals as a mezzo in teh Sapphic Poem. Going to give each disk several more listens and will come back and express further thoughts on them.

The CD with the Celtic symphony is my favourite too. But I also like the Pagan Symphony and Symphony No 3 'The Cyprian Goddess' - great late-romantic material for wallowing in!
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mirror Image

I own the Hyperion box set of orchestral works with Handley/Royal Philharmonic and it's an outstanding set. Bantock was a wonderfully lyrical composer. I would like to hear a conductor like Andrew Davis tackle some Bantock down the road as I think he could truthfully conduct this music.

Octo_Russ

#70
May i also give my strong recommendation to the Celtic/Hebridean Symphony disc by Handley, it is a beauty, but no one seems to have mentioned The Witch Of Atlas on that disc, in my mind it's the very best thing on the disc, a phenomenal tone poem.

The Celtic Symphony in my mind is more like Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia, it's hard to see it as a Symphony, maybe he should have called it his 'Celtic Fantasia', i find him a good cross between Bax and Sibelius.

This disc is my one of my all time favourites, i've played it so much, however it's the only Bantock disc i have!, and i've neglected delving more into him, i'm not particularly a 'boxed sets' person, so where do i go next?, my thoughts are with Sappho/Handley, unless anyone's got a better recommendation.

Also, does anyone know of any other 'unknown' composers that have music like Celtic Symphony/Witch Of Atlas?.


I'm a Musical Octopus, I Love to get a Tentacle in every Genre of Music. http://octoruss.blogspot.com/

Lethevich

I must warn you that you simply won't find a Bantock disc to equal the one that you own - it contains too many of his best pieces. However, all the other orchestral discs in the series are well worth investigating.

A logical next step would be to complete his "trilogy" (he termed another of the major orchestral works his fourth symphony, I believe, but it hasn't stuck) of symphonies (disc 1) - the couplings are fine, although individually I would not rate them as highly as their comparable pieces on the disc you own: the Sea Reivers is more striking than the two Heroic Ballads, nice as they are, and I agree the Witch of Atlas is an underrated work that Fifine can't quite rival.

If this and the disc you own form a logical pairing, as do the next two, which feature several works based on Greek themes. Both are equally fine, but I would second your choice of the Sapphic Poem disc. It's not quite as over the top as choice of dedicatee and the disc's naked lady cover would imply, but it's marvelously atmospheric music and demonstrates some versatility - he doesn't write music for Greeks in the same way as music for Scots :)



The Naxos and Boult discs that I have heard are fine but don't come close to the quality of the Hyperion series. The Naxos one in particular was a bit disappointing, given how used I had become to their discs (for example Bax) offering stiffer competition to their rivals on Chandos, et al.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

vandermolen

#72
Quote from: Octo_Russ on August 05, 2010, 12:36:41 AM
May i also give my strong recommendation to the Celtic/Hebridean Symphony disc by Handley, it is a beauty, but no one seems to have mentioned The Witch Of Atlas on that disc, in my mind it's the very best thing on the disc, a phenomenal tone poem.

The Celtic Symphony in my mind is more like Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia, it's hard to see it as a Symphony, maybe he should have called it his 'Celtic Fantasia', i find him a good cross between Bax and Sibelius.

This disc is my one of my all time favourites, i've played it so much, however it's the only Bantock disc i have!, and i've neglected delving more into him, i'm not particularly a 'boxed sets' person, so where do i go next?, my thoughts are with Sappho/Handley, unless anyone's got a better recommendation.

Also, does anyone know of any other 'unknown' composers that have music like Celtic Symphony/Witch Of Atlas?.



My advice would be to go for the Hyperion disc with the Pagan Symphony. I don't think that you'll be disappointed as some of the shorter works share themes with the Hebriddean Symphony! As for other composers, you might enjoy Rudolph Simonsen's 'Hellas' and 'Zion' symphonies on CPO.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mirror Image

It's worth it to just go ahead and buy the Bantock box set. The whole set is essential listening:


mc ukrneal

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 07, 2010, 06:00:27 AM
It's worth it to just go ahead and buy the Bantock box set. The whole set is essential listening:


And it is $30 at Berkshire (they still had it as of this morning).
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Wanderer

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 07, 2010, 06:00:27 AM
It's worth it to just go ahead and buy the Bantock box set. The whole set is essential listening:



Seconded, even though we all got it mainly for the artwork.  ;D

Mirror Image

#76
Quote from: ukrneal on August 07, 2010, 11:22:40 PM
And it is $30 at Berkshire (they still had it as of this morning).

Berkshire charges too much for their shipping, but they have the best price on this box set right now. Buying the box set is an affordable way to get the complete series. Their price would be the way to go. I've owned this set for a year now and it's one of the many treasures I have in my collection.

CD

Apparently Mike Nelson from Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a fan. Who knew? :D





Albion

As an ardent lover of all things Bantockian, I thought I'd draw attention to two recent discs of his unnaccompanied choral music that may have slipped through the net:

http://www.meridian-records.co.uk/acatalog/CDE84570.html

http://www.regent-records.co.uk/product_details_189.htm

The latter is particularly important in giving us at last the third 'Choral Symphony' A Pageant of Human Life - in fact this is more of a short choral suite, far removed from the labyrinthine a capella complexities of Atalanta in Calydon and Vanity of Vanities (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bantock-Choral-Symphonies-Granville/dp/B0000049PB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293730675&sr=1-1), but nonetheless valuable to have in such a superb performance. The St Louis disc also presents the first performance of the only surviving (and unpublished) movement of Bantock's aborted Walt Whitman Choral Symphony, a project he abandoned in order to concentrate on Vanity.

Both discs are very well executed, beautifully presented and thoroughly recommendable.
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

Lethevich

#79
I was just browsing Bantock's Wikipedia entry. How dreadfully depressing how much of his music is unrecorded. Where labels are now beginning to scrape the barrel with, say, Bax's output, Bantock has entire choral "symphonies" and reams of orchestral music untouched by major recording labels (and yet where Chandos recording Omar Khayyam was laudable, I doubt it will be a money spinner) :'(
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.