Havergal Brian.

Started by Harry, June 09, 2007, 04:36:53 AM

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Luke

I forgot that I also took this one, which shows the circular plaque which reads:

COMPOSER
WILLIAM HAVERGAL BRIAN
1876-1972
LIVED AND COMPOSED
THE GOTHIC SYMPHONY
HERE
1922-1927

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Luke on November 19, 2023, 05:18:51 AMI forgot that I also took this one, which shows the circular plaque which reads:

COMPOSER
WILLIAM HAVERGAL BRIAN
1876-1972
LIVED AND COMPOSED
THE GOTHIC SYMPHONY
HERE
1922-1927

a modest house for a mighty work.......

hbswebmaster

The Havergal Brian Society has a new group set up on Facebook, kicking off with details of our latest sponsored operatic and symphonic recording featuring Martyn Brabbins and ENO, recording sessions for which are currently under way. See you there!

Ashen Pathfinder

Quote from: hbswebmaster on December 01, 2023, 10:48:01 AMThe Havergal Brian Society has a new group set up on Facebook, kicking off with details of our latest sponsored operatic and symphonic recording featuring Martyn Brabbins and ENO, recording sessions for which are currently under way. See you there!

That's amazing! So excited for new Brian recordings. I wonder if Heritage will be releasing anything new...

Albion

#8264
Quote from: hbswebmaster on December 01, 2023, 10:48:01 AMThe Havergal Brian Society has a new group set up on Facebook, kicking off with details of our latest sponsored operatic and symphonic recording featuring Martyn Brabbins and ENO, recording sessions for which are currently under way. See you there!

How fantastic it will be to have a new recording of "Agamemnon" on Hyperion, I have the 1973 broadcast conducted by Richard Armstrong which I assembled from several different sources and it's a very strong work. Once Toccata eventually get round to releasing "The Cenci" that will only leave "Turandot" to tackle.

Brian's "Faust" is an unexpectedly lyrical opera (just sample the first scene of act two). Anybody who can cope with Hindemith will have no problems with this score's more astringent passages. Wonderful stuff, and amazing to think that Brian (born in 1876) was an operatic contemporary of Britten (born in 1913). The forthcoming new releases of "The Cenci" and "Agamemnon" should be a treat...
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)

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Albion on December 09, 2023, 01:35:05 PMHow fantastic it will be to have a new recording of "Agamemnon" on Hyperion, I have the 1973 broadcast conducted by Richard Armstrong which I assembled from several different sources and it's a very strong work. Once Toccata eventually get round to releasing "The Cenci" that will only leave "Turandot" to tackle.

Brian's "Faust" is an unexpectedly lyrical opera (just sample the first scene of act two). Anybody who can cope with Hindemith will have no problems with this score's more astringent passages. Wonderful stuff, and amazing to think that Brian (born in 1876) was an operatic contemporary of Britten (born in 1913). The forthcoming new releases of "The Cenci" and "Agamemnon" should be a treat...

The Hyperion release to be tinged with some sadness since it has been recorded by Martyn Brabbins and the Orchestra of English National Opera since the Brabbins' resignation over the funding cuts (including loss of 17 posts in the orchestra and loss of full time contracts for everyone else) to the Opera House and its enforced relocation to Manchester.  Not so much "levelling up" as "flattening down".

calyptorhynchus

#8266
I think I posted above about whether HB has had any influence on subsequent composers. Today I was listening to the 7th Symphony of Arthur Butterworth which I'd discovered on Youtube (the premiere in 2012), and it occurred to me that the form of that work, a 20 minute continuous movement, and the mood, grim but dogged, were very Brianic. Of course Butterworth's main influence throughout his compositions was Sibelius, but I wonder if, for his last symphony, he hadn't been influenced by some of the Brian recordings coming out in the 2000s, or had hopped on to the HB Society website to have a listen to the BBC radio broadcasts (did it exist then?).
And Butterworth was around 88-89 when he finished his S7, almost as old as Brian when he wrote his last symphonies.
'Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.' Robert Burton

Maestro267

Bringing the fabled Brian thread into 2024 with news that the Brabbins recording of the Gothic on Hyperion is part of the latest bunch of recordings released to streaming services.

https://open.spotify.com/album/56PJSZdGl2Z46NSP2GpHUz

Albion

According to an email I received from Martin Anderson the long-awaited issue of "The Cenci" from Toccata is now provisionally scheduled for May/ June.

 8)
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)