We asked Rob Cowan to review Il Sogno without telling him anything about it. This is the response of his ‘innocent ear’…
There’s an element of mystery here, and not just in the unexpected mix of styles. I note the use of a cimbalom; maybe it’s meant to evoke a ghostly presence (the lilting dance on track 8, for example), one that recurs throughout the piece. If so, it works rather well (eerie high string writing and slides are another ploy: try the start of track 15).

There’s something impish, almost Tolkienian about the language. Influences abound. Prokofiev came to mind on more than one occasion, Mahler (the First Symphony) too, whereas Sibelius seems to haunt the second track. The bardic resonances made me think of Sibelius’s incidental music from The Tempest, though the style here is much lighter, less subtle, even jazzy, more obviously ‘filmic’. A ballet, maybe?

The instrumentation is very transparent, often economical. Suggested love scenes are plentiful and so is an element of swing – on track 9 which like other passages in the piece has a Bernsteinian edge to it (side-glances at ‘Jets and Sharks’ on track 12). Time and time again my imagination strained to focus images, seascapes, mysterious forest scenes, wizened creatures galumphing about. Recurring colours and motives suggest an on-stage community taking part in some very specific action. I would identify it as modern British, the work of someone who usually operates outside of the classical field, maybe a partially collaborative effort. I enjoyed listening much as I would to a rare ballet score by, say, Françaix or Arnold, or to a good film score, which this could easily be though I suspect the continuity of the action means that it isn’t.


And Andrew Farach-Colton offers his view…
Elvis Costello is something of a musical chameleon. Indeed, his ability to write in a variety of styles was manifest in his brilliant early albums like This Year’s Model (1978), Trust (1981), Almost Blue (1981) and Imperial Bedroom (1982). The singer/songwriter’s keen ear for stylistic detail has aided him in Il Sogno, too – a fluent and melodically attractive ballet based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream. The scoring is generally skilful, and tracks like ‘Oberon humbled’ show that Costello has mastered the fine art of thematic transformation.

Il Sogno is constructed, like so many of its balletic predecessors, from small, discrete sections, with several themes woven through- out the score to provide coherence. This is helpful though, even after several auditions, I find it doesn’t quite hang together. Transitional passages are often awkward, which tends to diffuse dramatic tension. What really keeps it from gelling, however, is the music’s stylistic mix. The various forays into jazz bring Fancy Free to mind, but in Bernstein’s ballet, the jazz elements are woven seamlessly into the musical fabric, whereas in Costello’s they sound tacked on.

Costello fans – and I count myself among them – will likely want to hear Il Sogno in its entirety. Ultimately, though, the music would probably be better served by having its best parts arranged into a concert suite. Certainly the performance here leaves nothing to be desired. Michael Tilson Thomas and the LSO make the most of the score’s gauzy delicacy and tender lyricism, and DG’s recording is exceptionally vivid and well-balanced.