Bantock - Tone Poem 5 'The Witch Of Atlas' [Handley-Royal Philharmonic Orchestra] This is the second time this work appears in my Blog [15th March 2010], i got to play this disc walking through the park on the way to Church, the first two works are heavenly, why have they been so obscure for so long?, thanks to Vernon Handley, his efforts to get them better known have paid off in this recording, this is now my 4th best disc of all time, that's a phenomenal achievement for a Composer that's on the fringes!.
Vernon Handley is British, born in 1930, and died recently in 2008, he was a great champion of British music, and recorded a lot that others wouldn't touch, he made this recording in 1990, the front cover is a nice painting by Johan Dahl, called Morning After A Stormy Night.
As far as i'm concerned, this is the best work on the disc, it's tremendous, i don't know why it isn't recorded more often, and why it isn't famous, Hyperion have supposedly helped us in giving the work 9 cuing points, but for a 14 minute work, it would have been better to have given timings within the work in the booklet, these tracks just get in the way for me, it starts off very quiet and sparse, with barely audible tremolo strings whimpering, and a solo violin beseeching us [0:04+ track 6], with an oboe as a duet partner [0:20+ track 6], and later a bass clarinet [1:01+ track 6], it's a very atmospheric opening, conjuring up the scene nicely, the music swells [0:00 track 7], with a lovely note on the soft brass, with rippling harp, the lower woodwind are wonderfully mysterious [0:41+ track 7], the chattering piccolos / flutes are exciting [0:05-0:21 track 8], and right after comes the very best bit of the Tone Poem, the music swells into a full blooded string serenade [0:21+ track 8], it's just simply stunning and gorgeous!, chattering woodwinds / flute return [0:00+ track 9], after a more tempestuous section, the woodwinds have a marvellous decrescendo [0:43-1:11 track 12], starting at the piccolos, and moving down through the woodwinds to the bassoon, right at the end there's excellent use of the glockenspiel [1:25+ track 13], it's a work that is on the whole sparse and restrained, but full of atmosphere and effect.
Here's Vernon Handley conducting The Witch Of Atlas on YouTube, it's a fairly quiet level of volume, plus it starts very quiet too!.
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