Virginia Knight:

>I haven't yet found a record of a visit by a great non-British
>composer to my home town of Bath.

Sir Thomas Beecham was given to mining what were then lesser-known
works of Handel and arranging them into suites for orchestra.  One
such was a ballet called Love in Bath, or The Great Elopement.  Any
suggestion of untoward goings-on during ablutions is quickly dispelled
by the realisation that the setting is the city of Bath.  In these days
of faithfulness to the score, it's very out of date, but I remember
finding it very attractive in my early days of exploring CM.  As the
notes point out, "a good proportion of it is pure Beecham", but only in
the arranging sense: it's not like Kreisler's compositions "in the manner
of." I'm not sure whether this ever made it to CD, but I'd suggest it's
no more unfaithful to the spirit of the composer than the Handel/Harty
Water and Fireworks Music.  All of which makes me wonder whether Handel
ever ventured that far west.

Richard Pennycuick
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