This collection carries the welcome announcement that it is the first of a series in which Tippett will conduct his own works. Excellent, but may I suggest that Nimbus reconsider their policy concerning recorded balance before they go ahead with the next instalment? Our listening chair is placed, I should say, about a foot above Sir Michael's head. Result: a touch of glare and some congestion in very full passages, the excellent solo voices (and how good to hear the concert version of the final Dance with all four vocal lines) are embedded inextricably and not always quite audibly in the orchestra, while the enthusiastic cries of encouragement from the composer-conductor are rendered with maximum fidelity there is also a curious clicking noise in the midst of Sosostris's aria (sung with noble gravity by Alfreda Hodgson); could it be Tippett turning pages?
There'd be no point in carrying on thus ungratefully if the performances weren't worth better. It is always illuminating to hear what a composer most enjoys in his own music, and Tippett is such an outgoing conductor (and besides, he conducts relatively seldom these days, and dearly revels in it when he does) that his favourite bits and his priorities are very apparent. In the ''Ritual Dances'' magic, first of all: quiet stillness and expectancy. Hugely exhilarating energy next (he sets a merciless tempo for the last Dance) and throughout a love of bright, filigree intricacy. In the Suite we are reminded by the sonorous references to the hymn-tune Crimond that he is a first-rate Elgarian conductor, too (could Nimbus try to tempt him? …) and by the recycled pages of some of his juvenilia that he at least subconsciously discovered links between English folk-song, Tudor music and the New World many, many years ago. An ear turned to America is also audible in the Praeludium, a work from the ambit of King Priam but with that opera's sound-world modified by the omnipresence of bells—in the brass as well as the percussion. It too, is finely played (and equipped with a particularly impassioned vocal obbligato). A thoroughly enjoyable collection, despite my carping. Tippett the composer is often spoken of as amazingly young for his 85 years; Tippett the conductor is even younger.'