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 (Christopher Morley), April 29, 2000

"Tippett's uniquely life-enhancing vision has been central to the musical life of post-war Britain; for a generation he has been the doyen of British musicians and is now universally regarded as one of the world's greatest living composers. Yet despite distinction and seniority he has never assumed the mantle of 'Grand Old Man' - his remarkably youthful, energetic presence and attitudes belie his 85 years; but most significantly of all, Tippett remains compositionally at the height of his powers, producing music of glowing vigour and richness." 1990 Geraint Lewis

"Its (Nimbus's) 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." Nicholas Williams, BBC Music Magazine