The wellspring for each of these superb scores is an established literary classic (The Scarlet Tunic is adapted from Thomas Hardy’s The Melancholy Hussar), with both tales having certain affinities; each tells of love and death, of desire leading to tragedy – but with George Eliot’s forlorn melancholy contrasting with Hardy’s cynical, almost malicious take on the vagaries of life. The two novels also celebrate landscape, and John Scott responds: here, in music, are the rolling Wessex downs of Hardy’s imagination and the breezy reaches of George Eliot’s Lincolnshire.
Heartfelt melody is at the centre of the picturesque music for The Mill on the Floss. An engagingly pastoral theme – blossoming with bird-song, sighing with summer zephyrs – and representing the River Floss itself, courses through the score. Elsewhere, select solo instruments hover exquisitely above richly textured strings, extending the reverie; this is beauteous, exemplary music, lovingly realized. Yet the idyll must end, shattered by the rising of the fateful storm – presaged by nervous woodwind and tremolando strings – which will breach the banks of the Floss and bring tragedy. But essentially this is a score of haunting romanticism; one of the finest I have heard this year.
The music for The Scarlet Tunic enlists darker timbres: steely misterioso strings conjure tension, clarion calls herald military might, ominous ostinatos intrude – reminders that this is a tale of betrayal, desertion and death. But there is respite, notably as the composer summons some musical spit and polish to burnish a gleaming Hussar march, and via winning variations on a winsome love theme: angst and ardour alloted equal measure in an outstanding score.
Both albums feature warm, richly detailed recordings and handsome booklets copiously crammed with notes and illustrations.DW