Britten: Paul Bunyan [Box set] [Import]

Track Listings
1. Introduction-Prologue    
2. First Ballad Interlude    
3. Act 1 Scene 1    
4. Act 1 Scene 1    
5. Act 1 Scene 1    
6. Act 1 Scene 1    
7. Act 1 Scene 1    
8. Act 1 Scene 1    
9. Act 1 Scene 1    
10. Act 1 Scene 1    
11. Act 1 Scene 1    
12. Second Ballad Interlude    
13. Scene 2    
14. Scene 2    
15. Scene 2    
16. Scene 2    
17. Scene 2    
18. Scene 2    
19. Scene 2    
20. Scene 2    
See all 33 tracks on this disc

Britten: Paul Bunyan, Music, Brunelle, Orchestra of the Plymouth Music Series Minnesota, Benjamin Britten, Philip Brunelle, Classical
Britten: Piano Concerto; Johnson Over Jordan (Suite)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • MacGregor's Piano Concerto is Equal to Richter's ...
 Britten: Piano Concerto; Johnson Over Jordan (Suite)

Manufacturer: Naxos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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  5. Ferguson: Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra; Gerhard: Concerto for Piano and Strings

ASIN: B0007XHKYO
Release Date: 2005-04-19

Tracks:

  1. Overture To Paul Bunyan
  2. I. Allegro Molto E Con Brio
  3. II. Waltz: Allegretto
  4. III. Impromptu: Andante Lento
  5. IV. March: Allegro Moderato Sempre A La Marcia
  6. Piano Concerto - Original Third Movement: Recitative And Aria
  7. Overature
  8. Introduction
  9. Incinerators' Ballet
  10. The Spider And The Fly
  11. Approach Of Death
  12. End Music

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars MacGregor's Piano Concerto is Equal to Richter's ..........2005-05-04

... but different. Richter's well-loved recording of Britten's only piano concerto, with Britten conducting, is Big Concerto romantic in its take on the work. MacGregor's (and conductor Steuart Bedford's) is rather more neoclassic, almost sounding in spots as if it had been written by one of Les Six (except, of course, for the intentionally Prokofievian finale). That's partly because of the recorded sound. Richter/Britten was recorded in 1970 and although the sound has worn well, it has the orchestra somewhat recessed in comparison to the spotlight on Richter's piano. In the present recording the orchestra, which has some really quite wonderful things to say, is treated as an equal partner. This is all to the advantage of the music, I feel. Add to that the brio that MacGregor brings to her performance, and you have a winner. MacGregor, like Richter, is no shrinking violet and she more than holds her own. It is well known that seven years after the 1938 première of the Concerto (with Britten himself at the piano), the composer threw out the original third movement (of four, subtitled 'Recitative and Aria') and composed a new one, called 'Impromptu.' This recording includes, as the concerto's fifth track, that original. My own opinion is that although there are some lovely moments in the original movement, Britten's replacement works better. But it's good to hear it.

The other pieces here are the rollicking overture to Britten's early American opera 'Paul Bunyan,' written while he and Peter Pears were in the US early in the War. The overture had been dropped when the opera was premièred and existed only in piano score; it was orchestrated by Britten's amanuensis, Colin Matthews, in the 1970s, and brilliantly so. And the CD ends with Paul Hindmarsh's arrangement of Britten's incidental music for J. B. Priestley's 1939 play, 'Johnson over Jordan.' It is notable for its use of jazz, particularly in the big band number 'The Spider and the Fly,' which sounds like nothing that I can recall Britten ever writing. It is luscious and even a little sexy. Who knew Britten was capable of writing this kind of music?

This budget-priced CD is a compilation put together from early 1990s performances released separately on the now-defunct Collins Classics label. Bedford as an exponent of Britten's music needs no special pleading; he is obviously the most expert Britten conductor we have. Sound is marvelous and these performances have a freshness and verve that is entirely infectious.

Warmly recommended.

TT=64:00

Scott Morrison
Benjamin Britten: Paul Bunyan
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Benjamin Britten: Paul Bunyan
    Benjamin Britten (Composer) , Philip Brunelle (Conductor) , and Chorus & Orchestra Of The Plymouth Music Series, Minnesota Soloists
    Manufacturer: Atlantic / Wea
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD
    ASIN: B00004VFWT
    Release Date: 1989-05-12
    Britten: Paul Bunyan
    Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    • Very Worthwhile
    • A great rendition of brilliant but obscure piece
    		 Britten: Paul Bunyan

    Manufacturer: EMI Int'l
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

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    ASIN: B000026EK1
    Release Date: 2002-12-23

    Tracks:

    1. Introduction-Prologue
    2. First Ballad Interlude
    3. Act 1 Scene 1
    4. Act 1 Scene 1
    5. Act 1 Scene 1
    6. Act 1 Scene 1
    7. Act 1 Scene 1
    8. Act 1 Scene 1
    9. Act 1 Scene 1
    10. Act 1 Scene 1
    11. Act 1 Scene 1
    12. Second Ballad Interlude
    13. Scene 2
    14. Scene 2
    15. Scene 2
    16. Scene 2
    17. Scene 2
    18. Scene 2
    19. Scene 2
    20. Scene 2
    21. Scene 2
    22. Scene 2
    23. Act Ii Scene 1
    24. Act Ii Scene 1
    25. Act Ii Scene 1
    26. Act Ii Scene 1
    27. Act Ii Scene 1
    28. Act Ii Scene 1
    29. Act Ii Scene 1
    30. Third Ballad Interlude
    31. Scene 2
    32. Scene 2
    33. Scene 2

    Customer Reviews:

    4 out of 5 stars Very Worthwhile.......2005-01-25

    This is a fine recording and performance of Britten's first opera, Paul Bunyan, notable also because WH Auden wrote the libretto. Britten and Auden apparently initially aimed at producing some kind of Broadway show. Clearly, once they got underway, this piece became too ambitious and complicated for a Broadway venue. As pointed out in the excellent liner notes by the Britten scholar Donald Mitchell, this work has the form of an operetta and it certainly has a light hearted tone. While the form and tone of the work is comedic, its intent is serious. In several respects, this piece is simultaneously a meditation on the nature of America and Man's relation to the natural world, a recurrent theme in Auden's work. Much of the music is lovely, displaying Britten's characteristic and remarkable talent for setting text to music. There are some stunning moments, including the Litany that closes the piece. This is not one of Britten's greatest works but it is awfully good, at least on par with Albert Herring, and in my opinion, better than that better known piece.

    5 out of 5 stars A great rendition of brilliant but obscure piece.......2005-01-24

    A marvelous recording of an neglected early masterpiece of Britten's, marred in a few spots by sub-par acting, but mostly capturing the vivid spirit and beauty of this score.
    Britten: Paul Bunyan / Coleman-Wright, Cranham, Streit, Gritton, Robinson, Watosn; Hickox
    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • Britten's virtually lost American masterpiece.
    		 Britten: Paul Bunyan / Coleman-Wright, Cranham, Streit, Gritton, Robinson, Watosn; Hickox
    Benjamin Britten , Richard Hickox , Peter Coleman-Wright , Kenneth Cranham , Timothy Robinson , Kurt Streit , Susan Gritton , Pamela Helen Stephen , Roderick Earle , and Lilian Watson
    Manufacturer: Chandos
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

    All Works by BrittenAll Works by Britten | Britten, Sir Benjamin | ( B ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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    ASIN: B000038I6U
    Release Date: 2000-01-11

    Customer Reviews:

    4 out of 5 stars Britten's virtually lost American masterpiece........2002-03-27

    There was much concern in the early decades of the 20th century with the creation of a genuinely American opera, a national music drama that would fuse native forms with the operatic modes laid down in Europe. The most celebrateed effort is Gershwin's 'Porgy And Bess'. But in Europe, composers were writing 'American' operas too, most notably Puccini and his 'The Golden Girl Of The West'. In the 30s and 40s, two European composer-writer teams offered their own sarrdonic spin on this sub-genre - Brecht/Weill with 'The Fall And Rise Of Mahogony', and Britten/Auden with 'Paul Bunyan' (written while the partnership were living in the States). Although both pairings could hardly be more different, there are striking similarities between the two operas, written within a decade of each other. Both are ironic epics dealing with a mythic America, a kind of rise-and-fall narrative relating or predicting progress and decline. Both make rich use of popular American music, in particular African-American forms such as jazz, blues and spirituals, but also ballads and country - this gives the individual numbers in 'Bunyan' a melodic immediacy not always associated with Britten. There are even songs in the opera that echo Weill, repeating that magic trick of brittle, mocking melancholy (e.g. 'Cooks' Duet', 'The Blue - Quartet Of The Defeated). Britten shares with the German a sustained use of musical parody (especially Wagner and sacred music) and bathos; an important place for the Chorus; the odd jerky march rhythm; and a preponderance of wind and brass. Auden even paraphrases some of Brecht's 'Threepenny Opera'-era ideas, especially in the figure of Johnny Inkslinger, the cultured idealist forced into capitalism by economic necessity - 'But I guess a guy gotta eat' (Auden's companion, Christopher Isherwood, famously translated Brecht's songs).

    'Paul Bunyan' plays like a modern Genesis/creationist story, opening, from nothing, with a talking forest, undisturbed lands waiting for the expansionist adventures of the pioneers. Bunyan engendered by supernatural agency, arrives in this Eden, flagged by pastoral flutes, and sets up a logging company. The first act deals with the recruitment of workers; the second with their unrest and desire to settle down or move on - a potted history of America (wilderness; European pioneers, agriculture, industry, politics, Hollywood - no Civil War or Indians, of course). This narrative, which equates America with the first Garden, the pioneer with a God-approved prophet and capitalism with Mainfest Destiny, is interrupted with flashforwards to future misery, and framed by a balladeer who narrates Paul's unlikely adventures in tall-tale shorthand. Paul, who significantly speaks his part throughout, is at once pioneer, secular 'father'/preacher/guide/Christ figure, genie, spirit of America, Cassandra, American dream, capitalist boss (tough but fair) - when asked, he defines himself: 'I am the Eternal Guest/I am Way/I am Act'.

    The hybridity of forms (including an exquisite, fugal duet and exotic proto-Bernstein rhythms; Britten called the film a 'choral operetta'), styles, ideas and tones evoke a multi-cultural melting pot that seems to be progressing towards some great End Of History; but the repetitions in the score and of individual scenes undercut this movement.

    The ensemble cast in this recording of the revised opera (1975) are remarkable, submitting to the wry complexities of Auden's mercurial libretto, at once comic, earnest, ironic, satiric, romantic. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House emphasise the restless playfulness of the young Britten, as he veers from slapstick comedy to Blitzstein-like New Deal pageant to anachronistic Cole Porterisms to dark, tense drama. My only complaint refers to the major flaw of all Chandos recordings, the low sound mix, which makes it difficult at times to make out Auden's clear, clever words.
    Britten: Overture 'Paul Bunyan'; Piano Concerto/ Saxon: Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ; Joanna Macgregor
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      		Britten: Overture 'Paul Bunyan'; Piano Concerto/ Saxon: Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ; Joanna Macgregor

      Manufacturer: Collins Classics
      ProductGroup: Music
      Binding: Audio CD
      ASIN: B000BDHSD8

      Product Description

      Britten: Overture 'Paul Bunyan' Piano concerto. Saxton: Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. Joanna MacGregor, piano. English Chamber Orchestra. London Symphony Orchestra. Steuart Bedford. World Premier Recording, original version.
      Britten: Variations on Theme by Frank Bridge Op10; Pieces Op23
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        		Britten: Variations on Theme by Frank Bridge Op10; Pieces Op23

        Manufacturer: Olympia
        ProductGroup: Music
        Binding: Audio CD

        All Works by BrittenAll Works by Britten | Britten, Sir Benjamin | ( B ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
        Chamber MusicChamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
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        ASIN: B00000I6NV
        Release Date: 1999-02-23

        Tracks:

        1. Introduction And Rondo Alla Burlesca, Op. 23 No. 1
        2. Mazurka Elegiaca, Op. 23 No. 2
        3. Overture: 'Paul Bunyan' - (For One Piano, Four Hands)
        4. Two Lullabies: I. Lullaby
        5. Two Lullabies: II. Lullaby For A Retired Colonel
        6. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Introduction And Theme
        7. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Adagio
        8. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: March
        9. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Romance
        10. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Aria Italiana
        11. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Bourree Classique
        12. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Wiener Walzer
        13. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Moto Perpetuo
        14. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Funeral March
        15. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Chant
        16. Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge: Fugue And Finale
        17. Balinese Ceremonial Music: I. Pemoengkah (Overture To Shadow-Play)
        18. Balinese Ceremonial Music: II. Gambangan (Intermezzo)
        19. Balinese Ceremonial Music: III. Taboeh Teloe (Ceremonial Music)
        Benjamin Britten: Overture "Paul Bunyan" / Piano Concerto, Op. 13 (original version) / Robert Saxton: Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ - Joanna MacGregor / English Chamber Orchestra / London Symphony Orchestra / Steuart Bedford
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          		Benjamin Britten: Overture "Paul Bunyan" / Piano Concerto, Op. 13 (original version) / Robert Saxton: Music to Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ - Joanna MacGregor / English Chamber Orchestra / London Symphony Orchestra / Steuart Bedford
          London Symphony Orchestra , and English Chamber Orchestra
          Manufacturer: Collins Classics
          ProductGroup: Music
          Binding: Audio CD

          All Works by BrittenAll Works by Britten | Britten, Sir Benjamin | ( B ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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          EnglishEnglish | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
          ASIN: B000003VVO
          Release Date: 1993-08-24

          Tracks:

          1. Ov 'Paul Bunyan'
          2. Pno Con, Op.13 (Original Version): Allegro Molto E Con Brio
          3. Pno Con, Op.13 (Original Version): Waltz. Allegretto
          4. Pno Con, Op.13 (Original Version): Impromptu. Andante Lento
          5. Pno Con, Op.13 (Original Version): March. Allegro Moderato Sempre A La Marcia
          6. Pno Con, Op.13 (Original Version): Original Third Movt.
          7. Music To Celebrate The Resurrection Of Christ
          Britten: Paul Bunyan
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            		Britten: Paul Bunyan

            Manufacturer: EMI Classics Imports
            ProductGroup: Music
            Binding: Audio CD

            All Works by BrittenAll Works by Britten | Britten, Sir Benjamin | ( B ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
            Allen, ThomasAllen, Thomas | ( A ) | Featured Performers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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            GeneralGeneral | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
            EnglishEnglish | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
            OperettasOperettas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
            ASIN: B0000A1M6C
            Release Date: 2003-11-04
            Paul Bunyan
            Average customer rating: Not rated
              		Paul Bunyan
              Britten , and Brunelle
              Manufacturer: Virgin Records Us
              ProductGroup: Music
              Binding: Audio CD
              ASIN: B00000DNVP
              Release Date: 1992-09-23
              Britten: The Company of Heaven
              Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
              • Worth Listening To
              		 Britten: The Company of Heaven

              Manufacturer: Angel Records
              ProductGroup: Music
              Binding: Audio CD

              All Works by BrittenAll Works by Britten | Britten, Sir Benjamin | ( B ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
              Chamber MusicChamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
              GeneralGeneral | Early Music | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
              GeneralGeneral | Classical | Styles | Music
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              CantatasCantatas | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
              GeneralGeneral | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
              EnglishEnglish | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
              CantatasCantatas | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
              ASIN: B00006ANK6
              Release Date: 2003-03-04

              Tracks:

              1. Chaos
              2. The Morning Stars
              3. Angels Appear To Jacob, Elisha And Mary
              4. Christ, The Fair Glory
              5. War In Heaven
              6. Heaven Is Here
              7. A Thousand, Thousand Gleaming Fires
              8. Funeral March For A Boy
              9. Whoso Dwelleth Under The Defence Of The Most High
              10. There Came Out Also At This Time
              11. Ye Watchers And Ye Holy Ones
              12. Overture - Angus Smith
              13. Lullaby Of Dream Shadows - Angus Smith
              14. Inkslinger's Love Song - Angus Smith

              Customer Reviews:

              3 out of 5 stars Worth Listening To.......2005-08-05

              Written for radio broadcast prior to WWII, The Company of Heaven is not one of Britten's major works. Nonetheless, it is worth listening to. Composed when he was still a young man, it is certainly not as original as later work but shows many of Britten's gifts. Britten's talents for lyrical writing, setting text to music, and theatrical effects are all displayed in this piece. Of greatest interest to Britten enthusiasts.

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