Composer: Granville Bantock
Performer: Julian Lloyd Webber, Susan Bickley
Orchestra: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Vernon Handley
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Catalogue: CDA66899
Release: 1997
Size: 286 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Sappho
01. Beginning. Prelude
02. I. Hymn to Aphrodite
03. II. I loved thee once, Atthis, long ago
04. III. Evening Song
05. IV. Stand face to face, friend
06. V. The moon has set
07. VI. Peer of gods he seems
08. VII. In a dream, I spake
09. VIII. Bridal Song
10. IX. Muse of the golden throne
11. Sapphic Poem
One generation’s pornography is another generation’s curiosity. Grenville Bantock’s setting of his wife’s dilations on Sappho entitled Sappho from 1906 was supremely seductive to the Edwardian England of its day, a seductiveness spiced by the apparent uncertain nature of the sexual inclinations of Bantock’s wife. But whether it is Sappho and her lovers, his wife and her lovers, or his wife and himself Bantock is depicting, there is no question that, judged purely in terms of musical pornography, Bantock’s Sappho was once, with its luxuriant melodies, voluptuous harmonies, lascivious colors, and orgasmic mezzo soprano, very, very hot stuff.
But as this 1997 recording by mezzo soprano Susan Bickley with Vernon Handley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra demonstrates, Bantock’s Sappho is now about as exciting as a French postcard or a Tijuana Bible. This is not to say that the performers do not do everything in their powers to beguile and entice. The Royal Philharmonic is rich and ripe. Handley’s conducting is firm and hard. Bickley’s singing is ecstatic and orgasmic. And Hyperion’s sound captures every ripe, hard, and orgasmic moment. But the music itself sounds so absurdly overdone, overwrought, and over the top that it verges on parody or even burlesque. Bantock’s Sapphic Poem from 1906 has the virtues of having a smaller orchestra and a cellist for a soloist and a smaller orchestra and Julian Lloyd Webber, Handley, and the RPO turn in a respectful performance.