Nothing could be more telling in terms of what audiences want vs. what they have been served than the success of the Lyrita label's series of historical recordings of British music. With little publicity and budget, the label has unearthed performances of, in most cases, completely unfamiliar music from the 1950s through the 1970s, and buyers have been lapping them up. Consider Elizabeth Maconchy, a composer known for her chamber music if at all. Héloïse and Abelard, based on the medieval correspondence recounting the ...
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Nothing could be more telling in terms of what audiences want vs. what they have been served than the success of the Lyrita label's series of historical recordings of British music. With little publicity and budget, the label has unearthed performances of, in most cases, completely unfamiliar music from the 1950s through the 1970s, and buyers have been lapping them up. Consider Elizabeth Maconchy, a composer known for her chamber music if at all. Héloïse and Abelard, based on the medieval correspondence recounting the romance between the young nun Héloïse and her teacher, has hardly been performed since its late-1970s premiere. The work is designated as an oratorio, but an imaginative director could perhaps stage it as a chamber opera, so passionate is its vocal writing; the Croydon Philharmonic Choir serves mostly as a frame for the passionate affair of Héloïse and Abelard, and the strictures placed upon it by Héloïse's uncle, the canon Fulbert. This isn't an extraordinary performance; Tom McDonnell...
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