Malcolm Arnold - Ballet Music (Rumon Gamba)

Information

Composer: Malcolm Arnold

• (01-06) Suite from 'Homage to the Queen', Op. 42
• (07-12) Rinaldo and Armida, Op. 49
• (13-19) Concert Suite from 'Sweeney Todd', Op. 68a
• (21-21) Electra, Op. 79

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Rumon Gamba, conductor

Date: 2009
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010550

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

Fans of Malcolm Arnold will want this disc as a matter of course; the music is wholly characteristic. Though nominally ballet music, there’s little here that sounds especially danceable, which doesn’t mean it’s not rhythmic. Rather, these scores sound just like film music, and accordingly they are most interesting where they are most atmospheric–Rinaldo and Armida and Sweeney Todd, principally. Electra is largely atonal but sounds like Arnold anyway, while Homage to the Queen is one of those British pageant pieces that you’d have to be a hardcore monarchist to love. Still, it’s brilliantly scored and lots of fun, and you kind of get the idea that Arnold wasn’t taking it all that seriously (heretical though the notion may be). The performances are as vigorous and colorful as the music itself, and the sonics are first-rate. Not great Arnold, perhaps, but as I said, it’s all very typical, and for many listeners that will be more than enough.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/07/arnold-ballet-music-bbc-philharmonic-gamba
https://www.allmusic.com/album/sir-malcolm-arnold-ballet-music-mw0001871773
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arnold-Ballet-BBC-Philharmonic-Orchestra/dp/B002NLRD4A

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Malcolm Arnold (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. He was ranked with Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain. His output of works features music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Arnold

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Rumon Gamba (born 24 November 1972), is an English conductor. He studied conducting with Colin Metters, George Hurst and Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Gamba was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2010. In October 2008, he was named the next chief conductor and music director of NorrlandsOperan. In March 2011, Gamba was named chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. Gamba has conducted a number of recordings for the Chandos Records label, particularly in their Film Music series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumon_Gamba

http://www.rumongamba.com/

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