Benjamin Britten; Colin McPhee - The Prince of the Pagodas; Tabuh-Tabuhan (Leonard Slatkin)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Britten; Colin McPhee

• Balinese Ceremonial Music (arr. Colin McPhee)
• McPhee - Tabuh-Tabuhan, toccata for orchestra and two pianos
• Britten - Suite from the Ballet 'The Prince of the Pagodas', Op. 57

Elizabeth Burley & John Alley, pianos

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Leonard Slatkin, conductor

Date: 2001

Label: Chandos

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

It was in 1939 that Benjamin Britten first met the Canadian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee (1900-64). Having recently returned from a six-year sojourn on the island of Bali, McPhee would no doubt have enthused to his younger colleague about that island’s indigenous gamelan music (of which he was by then a noted authority and pioneering champion). McPhee’s best-known achievement remains his ‘Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos’ Tabuh-tabuhan, written in Mexico City in 1936 and premièred that same year under Carlos Chávez. East meets West in this beguiling creation, and Slatkin masterminds a poised account that makes the music sound more than ever like a template for minimalism. It’s preceded here by a 1941 recording of McPhee and Britten performing the former’s Balinese Ceremonial Music for two pianos.

In Janaury 1956, Britten travelled to Bali. He, too, was bowled over by the island’s ‘remarkable culture’ and especially its gamelan tradition, which in turn spurred him to complete his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (a Sadler’s Wells commission with which he had become rather bogged down). Anyone not willing to go the whole hog and invest in Oliver Knussen’s dazzling set of the complete score (Virgin, 7/90) would do well to lend an ear to this Chandos newcomer which gives us an effective sequence devised in 1997 by Donald Mitchell and Mervyn Cooke. Lasting 51 minutes, it is cast in six parts, the fourth of which includes a generous helping of the gamelan-inspired material for ‘Pagoda-Land’ missing from the composer-approved concert suite assembled by Norman Del Mar in 1963. Slatkin directs as if to the manner born and the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s stylish, bright-eyed contribution is captured with thrilling realism by the Chandos engineers (the SACD equivalent should be worth seeking out by audiophiles). Altogether, a most enjoyable issue.

— Andrew Achenbach

-----------------------------------------------------------

Benjamin Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was a leading British composer, pianist and conductor. Trained at the Royal College of Music, he gained early acclaim with Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and achieved international prominence with the opera Peter Grimes (1945). His major stage works include Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, alongside innovative church parables such as Curlew River. Co-founder of the Aldeburgh Festival, he also composed celebrated song cycles, choral works including the War Requiem, and notable orchestral and chamber music.

***

Colin McPhee (March 15, 1900 – January 7, 1964) was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist. Educated in North America and Europe, he developed an early interest in layered ostinati. His transformative experience in Bali, alongside anthropologist Jane Belo, led him to document and help preserve gamelan traditions, culminating in his posthumously published study Music in Bali (1966). His compositions, particularly Tabuh-Tabuhan, reflect these influences. Later in life, despite periods of personal struggle, he was appointed professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA, and became an esteemed jazz critic.

***

Leonard Slatkin (born 1 September 1944 in Los Angeles) is an American conductor. Born into a musical family (his parents were founder and members of the Hollywood String Quartet), he received formal training at Indiana University, Los Angeles City College, the Juilliard School, and the Aspen Music Festival. Slatkin has held prominent leadership positions with major orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lyon. A six-time Grammy Award recipient, he is widely recognized for his recordings, publications and contributions to music education.

-----------------------------------------------------------