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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 23 June 2013 CE
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flashbackcaruso
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Re: Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 23 June 2013 CE
Jun 23, 2013, 11:12
Fitter Stoke wrote:


Elgar 'The Dream Of Gerontius' in the pioneering Malcolm Sargent recording from 1946: limited mono sound, but a truly inspired and committed performance by all concerned, especially the Huddersfield choir. Wonderful - and what a work! I enjoyed this as the final part of a Sargent evening preceded by Grieg's Lyric Pieces, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony and Britten's 'Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra' - all old mono recordings. It ain't rock and roll, but I like it.



'The Dream Of Gerontius' is something I'd normally find a bit of a challenge, but a couple of years ago at a car boot sale I found a mint copy of the exact box set the young Spencer Banks is listening to in David Rudkin's eerie Play For Today 'Penda's Fen'. It's the 1972 version conducted by Benjamin Britten and, while not all of it is entirely my cup of tea, I find myself regularly rewarded by some utterly sublime moments. The only disappointment is that it lacks the moment from the TV play where one particularly soaring note is treated by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop so that it reverberates into infinity and beyond. Don't know what Elgar would have thought of this electronic tampering, although his ghost does turn up in the play at one point and whispers the secret of the Enigma Variations into the main character's ear.
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