Customer Reviews

Bantock: Orchestral Music [Box Set]

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Granville Bantock wrote music that makes it possible to be a little embarrassed for liking it. Romantic, sweeping, emoting, eager - and sometimes a little silly, so caught up in how it wants to tell its stories (and apparently any grand, exotic story was good enough for Bantock to be inspired to write miniature-epics about), that the stories themselves (their particular flavor and characteristics) become jumbled in that romantic exterior. But then, who cares if this is not "great" music... it is fun music, and for the late-romantically inclined, at least some Bantock is a must. No one conducts it better than Handley (there isn't much competition, admittedly), and this Hyperion box of all the orchestral works is a very desirable semi-precious in the discography of English music. To utterly fulfill your Bantock-needs, add Chandos' recording of Omar Khayyám to that (also conducted by Handley), which made it onto my "A Few of My Favorite Things - 2007" list.