Havergal Brian Gothic Symphony from Hyperion

[Alan Howe]

The set is available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk at £19.15 (postage-free within the UK):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Symphony-Gothic-HYPERION-CDA67971/dp/B005Z4D2EW/ref=lh_ni_t

[Dundonnell]

...here's MusicWeb's review:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Nov11/Brian_Gothic_CDA679712.htm

Alan has provided this link to the Musicweb review.

At the end of that review there is a further link to an article on the Gothic and the Critics written by Brian Reinhart. Brian is a young man from Texas who was studying for a year at Queen Mary College, University of London and attended the Proms Gothic shortly before returning home. He is active on another music forum of which I am a member( ) and is a quite astonishingly good and incredibly perceptive writer.

I commend his article(and indeed others he has written) with the greatest possible enthusiasm.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I commend his article(and indeed others he has written) with the greatest possible enthusiasm.

And so do I.

[Christo]

And I.  Safe-but-far-away-in-Texas-now, Brian is also on Twitter as @bgreinhart   

[albion]

According to a member of another forum, who has downloaded the new Hyperion recording, Apart from some muffled coughs all the unwanted noise has been removed. I can't hear any instrumental mistakes and even the drops in pitch seem to have been sorted out.

I have already pre-ordered the Gothic and look forward to hearing probably as near-perfect a rendition as we are ever likely to have. This raises some issues which might possibly be worth discussing: personally I am all in favour of 'cleaning up' recordings of this magnitude where mistakes would become tiresome and frustrating on repeated listening, but I think that editing ought to be openly acknowledged and credited in the literature accompanying the commercial release.

I remember being pleased that several fluffed moments in the 1994 Proms revival of Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers had been 'ironed out' when the CD set was released by Conifer, but what I heard was not the performance as broadcast live and nothing about this was mentioned either in reviews or by the issuing company themselves.

Any thoughts?

[Lionel Harrsion]

I remember being pleased that several fluffed moments in the 1994 Proms revival of Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers had been 'ironed out' when the CD set was released by Conifer, but what I heard was not the performance as broadcast live and nothing about this was mentioned either in reviews or by the issuing company themselves.

A good question, John.  According to Wikipedia, Glenn Gould "likened his process [of editing] to that of a film director—one does not perceive that a two-hour film was made in two hours—and implicitly asks why the act of listening to music should be any different".  A great mate of mine who is a very highly regarded classical record producer takes exactly the same line and, for what it's worth, so do I.  When a CD is of a public performance, I can't see any objection to the booklet note making it clear that some 'cleaning up' has taken place but I wouldn't die in a ditch over it.

[albion]

According to a member of another forum, who has downloaded the new Hyperion recording, Apart from some muffled coughs all the unwanted noise has been removed. I can't hear any instrumental mistakes and even the drops in pitch seem to have been sorted out.

On principle I would delete any file from BMB once the same performance is issued commercially. As Hyperion have issued a commercial recording, this raises a tricky issue for me: should I now delete the file from BMB which is the 'warts and all' performance, or should it stand as a more 'accurate' record of a great evening of music-making at the Royal Albert Hall?

[Alan Howe]

I think it should stand. After all, the broadcast was not of the Hyperion recording...

[albion]

Just what I was thinking.

[Jimfin]

Applause is included, I note, but as it's a separate track I can choose not to play it. And anyway, after an event like this (even if 'cleaned up'), the applause is rather worth hearing perhaps once.

[albion]

after an event like this (even if 'cleaned up'), the applause is rather worth hearing perhaps once.

One or two of the first 'bravos' were offered by ...

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

One or two of the first 'bravos' were offered by ...

... most of the consecutive were mine. 

[albion]

They're still at it -

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Review in today's Observer (with comment by HBS Chairman John Grimshaw):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/27/havergal-brian-gothic-symphony-1-review

[albion]

Nothing of any great insight here, then -

Of his symphonies most of them never played ...

  hmm, the BBC in the 1950s-1970s, Lyrita, EMI, Marco Polo ... ?

a thrilling and bizarre BBC Proms performance ...

  hmm, meaningless, lazy adjectives ... ?

but it is just as well then that Few regard it as a masterpiece ...

  hmm, that dreaded word 'masterpiece' - who gives a flying flip whether it is or it isn't and what does the word mean beyond subjective prosletysing anyway?

Saints preserve us from 'music critics' - what a load of old cobblers.