BRIAN The Vision of Cleopatra
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Havergal Brian, Nicholas Ansdell-Evans
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Dutton Epoch
Magazine Review Date: 12/2018
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 74
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDLX7348

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
The Vision of Cleopatra |
Havergal Brian, Composer
Angharad Lyddon, Mezzo soprano Claudia Boyle, Soprano Claudia Huckle, Contralto English National Opera Chorus English National Opera Orchestra Havergal Brian, Composer Martyn Brabbins, Conductor Peter Auty, Tenor |
Two Choral Pieces |
Havergal Brian, Composer
English National Opera Chorus English National Opera Orchestra Havergal Brian, Composer Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Fantastic Variations on an Old Rhyme |
Havergal Brian, Composer
English National Opera Orchestra Havergal Brian, Composer Martyn Brabbins, Conductor Nicholas Ansdell-Evans, Composer |
For Valour |
Havergal Brian, Composer
English National Opera Orchestra Havergal Brian, Composer Martyn Brabbins, Conductor Nicholas Ansdell-Evans, Composer |
Author: Guy Rickards
Although Cleopatra’s rich harmonic language is closer stylistically to Bax or Bantock in Oriental mode, the whole is recognisably Brian. The musical argument is carried principally by the chorus and orchestra, which is not to denigrate the contribution of the four soloists, especially Claudia Huckle as Cleopatra, whose final soliloquy is exquisite. Chorus and orchestra combine again in the two 1912 settings of Robert Herrick, the wistfully intense ‘Requiem for the Rose’ and the more nightmarish ‘The Hag’. As Pickard comments in his excellent booklet note, they make a somewhat ‘lopsided’ diptych (a third setting may have been written but has not survived). The purely orchestral Fantastic Variations (1908) and overture For Valour (1904 06) both featured in Marco Polo’s pioneering Brian cycle. Brabbins’s meticulously prepared versions are appreciably swifter and more opulently recorded, and – avoiding the occasional tentativeness in the Marco Polo accounts – must now be considered definitive.
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