Composer: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Performer: Della Jones, David Wilson-Johnson
Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8572359
Release: 2014
Size: 247 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Black Pentecost
01. I. Adagio – Allegro molto
02. II. Black Star, Operation Black Star Was How They Described It
03. III. Bella Budge Presided over a Dimishing Republic of Hens
04. IV. It Is a Pity That the Whole Life and Economy of the Island…
Stone Litany, “Runes from a House of the Dead”
05. Molto lento – Andante
06. The Runic Alphabet. Recitativo lento
07. Allegretto
08. Ingibjorg the Fair Widow. Andante flessibile
09. Allegro molto
10. Lothbrokar’s Sons. Moderato
11. Max the Mighty. Recitativo lento molto flessibile
Both Black Pentecost and Stone Litany share a symphonic scale and an Orkney setting.
Premièred by Simon Rattle in 1982, Black Pentecost is an impassioned plea against environmental destruction, taking its words from Orcadian author George Mackay Brown’s novel Greenvoe, and cast in the form of a vocal symphony. Chamber-like restraint is matched by tense, dark writing that embraces threnody and cataclysm. Beautifully orchestrated and featuring elaborate melismas from the vocal soloist, Stone Litany, subtitled ‘Runes from a House of the Dead’, evokes the haunted landscape of a Neolithic burial mound plundered by Vikings.