Composer: Donald Francis Tovey
Orchestra: Malmö Opera Orchestra
Conductor: George Vass
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0033
Release: 2006
Size: 2336 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
The Bride of Dionysus
01. Prelude
Symphony in D Major, Op. 32
02. I. Allegro maestoso
03. II. Scherzo. Vivace ma non troppo presto
04. III. Canzona Dorica: Adagio
05. IV. Allegro con moto energico
Donald Francis Tovey (1875–1940) has long been known as one of the finest writers on music in English – but he saw himself primarily as a composer. His powerful and ambitious Symphony, written in 1913, has its stylistic roots in Brahms and Bruckner, and more distantly in Schumann, but Tovey was also open to contemporary developments: the harmonic procedures occasionally invoke Reger, the adventurous use of orchestral colour suggests Mahler and Nielsen and the scale – it is almost an hour in length – casts the work as a mighty cousin to Elgar’s two symphonies, finished not long before. This is its first recording since Tovey himself conducted a BBC broadcast performance in 1937. The disc opens with the first recording of the gentle, noble Prelude to Tovey’s only opera, The Bride of Dionysus, begun in 1907 and completed in 1918.