CD 1: Part I (beginning) [58:14]
CD 2: Part I (conclusion), Part II [73:08]
CD 3: Part III [40:09]
Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo) (The Beloved)
Toby Spence (tenor) (The Poet)
Roderick Williams (baritone) (The Philosopher)
Olivia Robinson (soprano) (First Pot)
Siân Menna (mezzo) (Second Pot)
Edward Price (bass) (Sixth Pot)
BBC Symphony Chorus/Stephen Jackson
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Take these ingredients:
a bit of likable and charming Richard
Strauss, a little Edward Elgar (less
than you’d expect), Pfitznerian phrases
here and there, camel bells (!), and
Edward Fitzgerald’s Victorian translation
of the poems of an eleventh-century
Persian astronomer and mathematician.
The result is Sir Granville Ransome
Bantock’s Omar Khayyám
– a three-part, three hour oratorio
set in a mélange of exotic sounds
from the Middle East and the European
imagination of what the Middle East
might be like.
It’s a fabulously audacious,
glittering, gleaming work for gargantuan
orchestra, three solo voices and chorus.
It took Bantock from 1906 to 1909 to
put this dramatic oratorio about the
"transience of existence"
together. Throughout its various parts
I hear different musical influences
or accidental similarities. Apart from
the above-mentioned composers there
are notes of Russian opera one minute,
then a Meistersingerish or otherwise
Wagnerian vocal line the next, and here
and there hints of Pfitzner’s (1920)
Eichendorff Cantata.
The work lulls significantly
toward the end … a pleasantly wafting
English pastoral dreamery … and more
hints of C.M. von Weber, Elgar, and
sweeping film music. To sit down for
the whole three hours that the work
lasts and read along the four-line verses,
and perhaps even pick out the leitmotifs
that Bantock employs - Ernest Newman
identified them and their exact appearances
are meticulously noted in the generous
liner notes - is a most rewarding joy.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra
plays astonishingly well, with unexpected
cohesion and passion. The Chorus, Catherin
Wyn-Rogers (mezzo), Toby Spence (tenor),
and Roderick Williams (baritone) contribute
their parts to make this premiere recording
an outstanding and compelling contribution
to the ever-growing Bantock discography.
Contributing most to that growth is
that indomitable champion of good-but-neglected
British music, Vernon Handley. This
recording is yet another step toward
most deserved knighthood for him. The
Chandos sound on this hybrid-SACD is
outstanding.
Jens F. Laurson
see also review
by Rob Barnett
rec. Watford Colosseum (Town Hall), 1-2
October 2005, 17-18 February 2007 
[3
CDs: 58:14 + 73:08 + 40:09] 
