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Out of the silent planet
Jun. 26th, 2009 01:23 pmIt's been a term of obscure operas in Oxford: earlier this summer I saw some friends sing in Schubert's Fierrabras, and tonight I went to the first performance in years of Donald Swann's Perelandra.
Yes, that's Donald Swann as in Flanders and Swann. Like Dudley Moore, he was a better composer than the comedy stuff gave him room for. He was also a big old fantasy nerd: he knew JRR Tolkien and set quite a few of his songs to music. (They're good, if a bit simplistic in places. Treebeard's song is my favourite. I rather prefer Stephen Oliver's settings, composed for the BBC radio dramatisation back in the Second Age.)
( How was it? )
Yes, that's Donald Swann as in Flanders and Swann. Like Dudley Moore, he was a better composer than the comedy stuff gave him room for. He was also a big old fantasy nerd: he knew JRR Tolkien and set quite a few of his songs to music. (They're good, if a bit simplistic in places. Treebeard's song is my favourite. I rather prefer Stephen Oliver's settings, composed for the BBC radio dramatisation back in the Second Age.)
( How was it? )