Does anybody know if there is a recording of this without the narrator? It is a great score and needs to be heard without the quotes from Shakespeare. Not that I don't like Shakespeare, but...
That Mathieson suite is available on a CD from EMI, but in the same album is included a reissue of the other old suite with Olivier narrating elsewhere, all on one album:
Does anybody know if there is a recording of this without the narrator? It is a great score and needs to be heard without the quotes from Shakespeare. Not that I don't like Shakespeare, but...
Muir Mathieson, who, among other scores, conducted that part of The Thief of Bagdad which Rózsa composed in England and the original soundtrack of Herrmann's Vertigo, arranged a five movement suite from Henry V which has been recorded (including by Carl Davis as indicated above).
The original score for Henry V is lost. However, in 2006/2007 Dominic Sewell reconstructed the entire score for performance with the film and it premiered in 2007 in Brighton, England. See: http://dominicsewell.co.uk/music/
A truly great and lyrically memorable score to a great film which was part of the second world war propaganda effort.
The score utilises music from Chants d'Auvergne, for which Canteloube sued Walton or his publishers; the 15th century Agincourt Carol, suggested to Walton by Vaughan Williams, and already used by Vaughan Williams in his incidental music for Henry V and, subsequent to Walton, used by George Dyson in his choral piece Agincourt; as well as other pieces from the middle ages.
It would be truly fantastic if Dominic Sewell's reconstruction recieved a modern recording. Here's hoping!
A more obscure recording of just the Globe Theatre dance and the Agincourt Battle is with Stanley Black with the LFO on one of his compilations.
What makes this one interesting is that he stops the orchestra abruptly to allow sound effects (from the film probably) to loose two flights of arrows, before continuing the piece. This is as in the film and works very well. The suite itself has a distinct problem there, in that it builds up to that climax, then changes, but the music has no actual climax, so it's a weak peak: see around the 4:30 mark:
Walton clearly took Prokofiev's Battle on the Ice from 'Alexander Nevsky' as his model. Interestingly, when Prokof adapted that as a cantata, he replaced the staccato ice-breaker clunks with a more elegant and classical section for the demise of the Teutonic knights. It might've been better if Walton/Sargent/Mathieson had encouraged the same here, because even a three second bar silence at that point would have been more correctly dramatic.
Charles Gerhardt's National Philharmonic version (produced by George Korngold, released by Varese) is presented in four movements with no speech. Excellent performance but the sound gets a bit congested in places.
It might've been better if Walton/Sargent/Mathieson had encouraged the same here, because even a three second bar silence at that point would have been more correctly dramatic.
FYI... the suite wrongly attributed to Sargent was created by Walton himself. (acc to Stewart Craggs' catalogue) and doesn't include the Battle music, that's on Mathieson alone.
Wow! Thanks to you all for your wonderful input. It is one of my favorite scores. Now I've got many ways to go.
I have most of these and the version with the Philharmonia and conducted by Walton himself is my favorite. The finale is one of the most stirring I've ever heard, and the 'Touch Her Sweet Lips and Part' was selected by my lovely bride as her entrance music at our wedding nearly 25 years ago.
Wow! Thanks to you all for your wonderful input. It is one of my favorite scores. Now I've got many ways to go.
I have most of these and the version with the Philharmonia and conducted by Walton himself is my favorite. The finale is one of the most stirring I've ever heard, and the 'Touch Her Sweet Lips and Part' was selected by my lovely bride as her entrance music at our wedding nearly 25 years ago.
Highly, highly recommended.
As a matter of fact, I did buy this one. It is terrific. And I also realized that I had Charles Gerhardt's National Philharmonic version. It's pretty good too. Thank you.
What is truly odd about this CD is that it displaces Walton's Funeral March from Hamlet with his Spitfire music. Walton's own recording of Hamlet is nowhere to be found on CD.
Had the Hamlet Funeral Music been included, the CD could have been a perfect all-Shakespearean program consisting of the classic 1964 Seraphim LP pictured in the second post above, plus the 1947 RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1128 4-disc 78-rpm set.
What is truly odd about this CD is that it displaces Walton's Funeral March from Hamlet with his Spitfire music. Walton's own recording of Hamlet is nowhere to be found on CD.
Had the Hamlet Funeral Music been included, the CD could have been a perfect all-Shakespearean program consisting of the classic 1964 Seraphim LP pictured in the second post above, plus the 1947 RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1128 4-disc 78-rpm set.
Not so strange really ...
The old LP of Olivier narrating his 'Henry V' speeches over Walton's music excerpts, with some movie cuts, which also appears on this CD, also had, on the flip side, Olivier narrating 'Hamlet' over Walton, in the same way.
I think EMI probably intended to release that too on a second companion CD, and would've of course needed to save the march for that.... though it's the identical piece musically to the narrated version. They could justify the duplicates with Henry V, but not really for just one piece.
Why they didn't release that prospective album is anyone's guess, but it might be that they couldn't find enough Hamlet (a full suite wasn't forthcoming on the suites LP) to justify it, and would have needed some other programmatic Walton suites to fill it up.
Cathy Segal-Garcia singing at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles 2007. Piano-Eddy Olivieri, bass-Chris Conner, drums-Jack LeCompte. Music by William Walton, lyrics by LM Pagano
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