Coupling Arthur Sullivan and Jean Sibelius' scores for Shakespeare's The Tempest was a brilliant decision. How else could one so easily and directly compare the two composers, the one a master of late-Victorian operetta and the other a master of early modernist symphonism? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sullivan's Suite is Mendelssohnian in its essence and those who hear the elves from a Midsummer Night's Dream in its pages are probably not wholly mistaken. "Banquet Dance" with its bouncy strings, the "Overture to Act IV" with its ...
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Coupling Arthur Sullivan and Jean Sibelius' scores for Shakespeare's The Tempest was a brilliant decision. How else could one so easily and directly compare the two composers, the one a master of late-Victorian operetta and the other a master of early modernist symphonism? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sullivan's Suite is Mendelssohnian in its essence and those who hear the elves from a Midsummer Night's Dream in its pages are probably not wholly mistaken. "Banquet Dance" with its bouncy strings, the "Overture to Act IV" with its charming bells and flutes, and the "Dance of Nymphs and Reapers" with its spiccato violins over legato cellos could easily be mistaken for outtakes from Mendelssohn's incidental music. Sibelius' score is made from sterner stuff. From the cosmic storm of the Prelude through the melancholy magnificence of "Prospero" to the otherworldly mystery of the "Berceuse," Sibelius' take on The Tempest is darker, grander, and much more frightening than Sullivan'sThe performance by the Kansas...
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