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COMPOSERGLANVILLE-HICKS, PEGGY
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PERFORMERPolaski, Homrich, Macallister, Trekel, Koch, Tomlinson, Wagner, Jensen, Markina, Meikle, Coro Gulben
Peggy Glanville-hicks: Sappho
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- Toccata
- November 13, 2012
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RELEASE DATENovember 13, 2012
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UPC5060113441546
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CATALOG NUMBERTOCC0154-55
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LABELToccata
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NUMBER OF DISCS2
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GENRE
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Act I: Overture
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Hurry, Joy, hurry! … Is your lady up? (Chloe, Joy, Doris, Diomedes, Minos)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Roman Trekel, Wolfgang Koch, Jacquelyn Wagner, Bettina Jensen, Maria Markina
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Now, at last you are here (Minos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Wolfgang Koch, Deborah Polaski
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Aria: My sleep is fragile like an eggshell is (Sappho, Minos)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Minos! (Kreon, Minos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: John Tomlinson, Wolfgang Koch, Deborah Polaski
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: So, Phaon's back (Minos, Sappho, Phaon)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Aria: It must have seemed like that to them (Phaon, Minos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 1: Phaon, how is it kreon did not ask you to stay (Sappho, Phaon, Minos)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Introduction - Phaon has become much thinner … The Nymph in the fountain (Minos, Sappho, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Boy! bring us the laurel! … What are the fortunes of the world we live in? (Diomedes, Sappho, Minos, Kreon, Phaon, Alexandrian, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich, Roman Trekel, Wolfgang Koch, John Tomlinson, Laurence Meikle
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Wait, hear me first! … The epigram contest (Minos, Diomedes, Sappho, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Roman Trekel, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Sappho! Sappho! … If death is noble (Sappho, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Ah, it is you (Phaon, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act I Scene 2: The Symposium: Nay, but always and forever (Sappho, Phaon)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 3: Introduction - What are you making? … Here's Minos coming (Sappho, Phaon, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 3: Hail to Pittakos (Phaon, Minos, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Martin Homrich, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 4: Sea begotten heroes (Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 4: Admit it now … Now, where is this brother of mine (Sappho, Pittakos, Kreon, Phaon)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Martin Homrich, Scott MacAllister, John Tomlinson
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 4: Ah, here you are at last (Pittakos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Scott MacAllister
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act II Scene 4: Aria: You think I do not feel … Sappho! Sappho! (Pittakos, Sappho, Minos)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Scott MacAllister, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 5: Diomedes, oh Diomedes, what have you done? (Sappho, Diomedes)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Roman Trekel
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 5: Sleep now (Sappho, Diomedes)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Roman Trekel
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 6: Priestess of the Oracle … Invocation (Sappho, Priestress, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Jacquelyn Wagner
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 6: Oh Mask! (Kreon, Sappho, Chorus)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Coro Gulbenkian, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, John Tomlinson
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 7: Introduction
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 7: The voting must be over (Minos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 7: Aria: I am very tired (Minos, Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 7: Sappho! Sappho! It is exile (Pittakos, Sappho, Minos)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski, Scott MacAllister, Wolfgang Koch
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Act III Scene 7: Now everything is silence and remoteness (Sappho)
Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Ensemble: Orquestra Gulbenkian
Performer: Deborah Polaski
Conductor: Jennifer Condon
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Whatever your views on the music or the performance, that this recording exists at all is an extraordinary story, and due congratulations must be offered to the hard work and dedication of all involved, in particular of Jennifer Condon. Her “normal” job is as a prompter at the Hamburg Opera, but she has been responsible for editing this previously unpublished work, preparing it for performance, persuading a large and distinguished cast to take part, in some cases without any remuneration, as well as conducting the performance. This shows a commitment to the work that may seem eccentric to the cynical but heroic to others who have laboured in vain on behalf of other similarly neglected works.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer whose teachers included Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Nadia Boulanger, who was married for a time to Stanley Bate, another neglected composer, and who spent twenty years in New York before moving to Greece and finally back to Australia. Her other works include the opera The Transposed Heads, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra and recorded by them in the 1950s and in 1984 by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. I have listened many times to both recordings with increasing pleasure so that I have been very eager to hear the present discs.
Sappho is a setting of an adaptation by the composer of a verse play by Lawrence Durrell. It tells of the Lesbian (but not lesbian) poet Sappho in her latter years when she was married to a wealthy local merchant, Kreon. The various scenes show her with the twin brothers, Pittakos and Phaon, with her tutor, Minos, and with Diomedes, a drunken poet. Towards the end she is exiled to Corinth on a false charge of incest. Her final monologue, the only part of the opera to have been publicly performed, is the clear climax of the opera, with Sappho accepting the impermanence of personal relationships as well as of her own life. It mirrors similar scenes at the end of operas by Strauss and Janácek, albeit that it is very different in its musical style. That style derives to a great degree from the composer’s attempt to reduce the importance of harmony in music, and to throw the emphasis instead on texture and tone, melody and heterophony. The result may seem a little bland at first but the listener soon adjusts to the composer’s very individual style.
A quick glance at the cast list shows several distinguished Wagnerian singers. Very surprisingly that appears to have been a necessity due to the weight of some of the orchestration. The conductor’s note indicates that she believes that with adjustment to dynamics and some of the orchestration it could be performed on a smaller scale, and I have to say that this would be welcome. In fact the ideal might be to retain the Wagner-sized voices but allow them to sing at somewhat less than full power. That would permit a more nuanced approach to performance and a more natural delivery of the, admittedly somewhat flowery, text. I am full of admiration for the cast here, who have taken on a major new work with obvious enthusiasm, but it has to be admitted that for much of the time there is a lack of any attempt at light or shade in their singing. The many singers for whom English is not their first language cope well but it cannot be said that the result sounds idiomatic. Admittedly the results in the case of the English-speaking artists are not all that much better, and although I attempted to follow what was being sung without it after a while I found myself wholly dependent on the printed libretto to understand what was being said or even who was saying it.
Sappho is by no means as immediately attractive as is The Transposed Heads, partly due to an apparent preponderance of slow or slowish music, but enough is revealed through this very welcome issue to suggest that subject to the preparation of a performance edition that would make it kinder to singers and to a greater familiarity with the work it would certainly merit stage performance. In the meantime we should once again thank Jennifer Condon for her untiring efforts to make it possible to hear the work and all the singers and players who helped her in this. Congratulations also to Toccata Classics whose presentation of the issue, with essays on the work, the edition, Durrell and Sappho, together with the full libretto, does all that could be done to help the listener and encourage understanding of this important discovery.
-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer whose teachers included Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Nadia Boulanger, who was married for a time to Stanley Bate, another neglected composer, and who spent twenty years in New York before moving to Greece and finally back to Australia. Her other works include the opera The Transposed Heads, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra and recorded by them in the 1950s and in 1984 by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. I have listened many times to both recordings with increasing pleasure so that I have been very eager to hear the present discs.
Sappho is a setting of an adaptation by the composer of a verse play by Lawrence Durrell. It tells of the Lesbian (but not lesbian) poet Sappho in her latter years when she was married to a wealthy local merchant, Kreon. The various scenes show her with the twin brothers, Pittakos and Phaon, with her tutor, Minos, and with Diomedes, a drunken poet. Towards the end she is exiled to Corinth on a false charge of incest. Her final monologue, the only part of the opera to have been publicly performed, is the clear climax of the opera, with Sappho accepting the impermanence of personal relationships as well as of her own life. It mirrors similar scenes at the end of operas by Strauss and Janácek, albeit that it is very different in its musical style. That style derives to a great degree from the composer’s attempt to reduce the importance of harmony in music, and to throw the emphasis instead on texture and tone, melody and heterophony. The result may seem a little bland at first but the listener soon adjusts to the composer’s very individual style.
A quick glance at the cast list shows several distinguished Wagnerian singers. Very surprisingly that appears to have been a necessity due to the weight of some of the orchestration. The conductor’s note indicates that she believes that with adjustment to dynamics and some of the orchestration it could be performed on a smaller scale, and I have to say that this would be welcome. In fact the ideal might be to retain the Wagner-sized voices but allow them to sing at somewhat less than full power. That would permit a more nuanced approach to performance and a more natural delivery of the, admittedly somewhat flowery, text. I am full of admiration for the cast here, who have taken on a major new work with obvious enthusiasm, but it has to be admitted that for much of the time there is a lack of any attempt at light or shade in their singing. The many singers for whom English is not their first language cope well but it cannot be said that the result sounds idiomatic. Admittedly the results in the case of the English-speaking artists are not all that much better, and although I attempted to follow what was being sung without it after a while I found myself wholly dependent on the printed libretto to understand what was being said or even who was saying it.
Sappho is by no means as immediately attractive as is The Transposed Heads, partly due to an apparent preponderance of slow or slowish music, but enough is revealed through this very welcome issue to suggest that subject to the preparation of a performance edition that would make it kinder to singers and to a greater familiarity with the work it would certainly merit stage performance. In the meantime we should once again thank Jennifer Condon for her untiring efforts to make it possible to hear the work and all the singers and players who helped her in this. Congratulations also to Toccata Classics whose presentation of the issue, with essays on the work, the edition, Durrell and Sappho, together with the full libretto, does all that could be done to help the listener and encourage understanding of this important discovery.
-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International
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