Len Mullenger ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Dick Claeys <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>And I have Malcom Arnold's "Grand, Grand Overture," written for the
>>Hoffnung Festival and featuring a full orchestra plus--three vacuum
>>cleaners, an electric floor polisher, and four rifles.  ...
>
>...  The original as performed at the 1956 concert is on a 3CD EMI set
>[$33 post free] and there is a stereo version on a Decca double CD from
>the 1988 posthumous concert [$24 post free]

M.  le Pedant butts in to point out that the third of the original
Hoffnung Festivals (1961) was also posthumous.  And that the 2nd and
3rd festivals were recorded in stereo.

I think they're both worth having: the 1988 is better recorded, often
better played and contains some real gems that were omitted from the
original recordings (such as???'s "Orchestral Switch") and the coda
of Metamorphoses on a Bedtime Theme in which the singers sing to some
*real* Stravinsky (I shan't say more in case you've never heard it).

BUT, I think the originals often captured the spirit and sense of
occasion better.  Good though the singers are in the 1988 Metamorphoses,
for example, the originals, if not technically superior, had a certain
something that's missing from the remake.  IMHO of course.

Deryk Barker
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