Tippett: Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage

“This is a highly desirable budget-priced Naxos release of two of the late Sir Michael Tippett's most well-loved works. The Ritual Dances adds up to a sizeable chunk of his first opera, the Midsummer Marriage, full of resonances of the countryside and the seasons, with darker overtones of birth, life and death (yes, almost a Rite of Spring, and almost as long). Their performance here from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under George Hurst is thrusting and colourful, with some wonderful woodwind solos. Breathing the same luminous, magical soundworld is Tippett's Piano Concerto of a few years later. Soloist in this finely-detailed, gently glowing account is Benjamin Frith.” Birmingham Post

“Sir Andrew Davis's formidable Tippettian credentials shine through in every bar of this outstanding anthology. Aided by realistic, firmly focused sound, the Concerto for Double StringOrchestra sounds glorious here. Davis directs a performance of enormous humanity, intelligence and dedication – even Sir Neville Marriner's excellent EMI remake now seems a little matterof- fact by comparison. In the slow movement Davis secures a rapt response from his BBC strings (the exquisite closing bars are drawn with ineffable tenderness), while the finale bounds along with irrepressible vigour and fine rhythmic panache. Davis's Fantasia concertante is an even more remarkable achievement. This is another inspirational display: sensitive and fervent, yet marvellously lucid and concentrated too. Once again, the BBC strings are on radiant form, and the lyrical intensity of their playing during the central climax has to be heard to be believed.
Davis's identification with this sublime music is total. Much the same applies, for that matter, to the committed and incisive account of the 'Ritual Dances' from The Midsummer Marriage, a veritable tour de force to which the BBC Symphony Chorus contributes thrillingly in the final dance.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“[Nimbus'] commitment to preserving the composer's own readings of his music during his lifetime was noble, assiduous and beyond reproach ... The achievement, as revealed on this four-CD collection, a panoramic view of his output lasting in all nearly four and a half hours, is such as to renew our sense of Tippett's greatness and his lasting historical presence, and the sheer glory of his music.” BBC Music Magazine