Geoffrey Bush: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

An Opera In One Act - a study in love, duty and counterpoint Libretto by the composer from the short story by Oscar Wilde.

Bush (1920-1998) was a composer with strong connections to the world of theater and British dramatic literature, and this close relationship with dramatic art is well decipherable in his operatic work - he composed 6 operas throughout his career - as is the Case of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. The original tale of Oscar Wilde unfolds in a romanticized, Victorian London.

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Catalogue Number
REAM1131
Reviews
Review

With a cast of 10 singers that correspond perfectly to Bush's writing, where lyricism and recitation are preponderant, and the vocal melodic line, often almost recitative, occupies a place of unequivocal supremacy, here and there punctuated with interjections Instrumental, usually triggered by the piano, with an accompaniment (to the charge of the Musicians of London) simplistic both from the point of view of instrumental staff (chamber orchestra) and writing itself. Here we have an unequivocal example of how the relationship with the theatrical context assumes great preponderance in the work of Geoffrey Bush.
Under Simon Joly's musical direction, the duet of the third scene between Lord Arthur (David Johnson) and Sybil Merton (Lynne Dawson), with tenor and soprano in perfect harmony, stands out as the highlight of the opera.

To complete this album, the Concerto for Trumpet and Piano by Bush, written in 1962.This ends up as a double concert, in three stages, with a very intimate character, where the orchestral accompaniment is, as with much of the work of Geoffrey Bush, very simple, occupying a place of much background. Discreet, above all with the function of ensuring a continuous harmonic atmosphere, sometimes almost static. The performance is played by Patrick Addinall (trumpet) and Hamish Milne (piano), alongside the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Bryden Thomson, in a musically profound and elaborate final interpretive result, where Hamish Milne's piano is evidence by their dexterity, clarity in articulation density in the wording.

This is what you can expect from a good quality recording, considering that this is a source of radio broadcasting from the 1980s. These recordings, which reveal a moment, a composer and his work, the interpreters and the specific solutions of a radio recital, now edited 21 years later, tell a lot of what there is still to do around the music edition. Tiago da Hora, XMusic.pt

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