Composer: Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson
Performer: RTE Chamber Choir
Orchestra: RTE Sinfonietta
Conductor: Kenneth Alwyn
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8555223
Release: 1996
Size: 225 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
A Wedding Bouquet
01. No. 1, Allegro brilliant
02. No. 2, Tranquillo
03. No. 3, Tempo di valse
04. No. 4, Tempo de tango
05. March for Piano (Orch. P. Lane)
Luna Park
06. I. The Four Niches
07. II. Adagio
08. III. Variation “Mamselle Nikita”
09. IV. Variation “Serge Lifar”
10. V. Coda
Lord Berners’ compositions, often satirical in intention, include ballets for Diaghilev and for Sadler’s Wells. While his first ballet, The Triumph of Neptune, is an ambitious and inventive example of his art (Naxos 8.555222), the choral ballet A Wedding Bouquet is Berners’ most original and successful work, if somewhat influenced by Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Written to a text by Gertrude Stein and choreographed by Frederick Ashton, this is music full of vivacity, festive brilliance and pathos. Set in a freak show pavilion, Luna Park is a ‘fantastic ballet in one act’, succinctly scored and wittily characterised.