THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

“Taken from a live Prague concert in January this year, this recording is the first performed in its original English text, and the result is so uplifting that one wonders at the work’s neglect in the Anglophone world.”

Full review:

Martinu’s oratorio — or secular cantata — is a later work, written for the Swiss philanthropist and conductor Paul Sacher, who gave the world premiere, sung in German, in Basel in 1958. Taken from a live Prague concert in January this year, this recording is the first performed in its original English text, and the result is so uplifting that one wonders at the work’s neglect in the Anglophone world. Like many of Martinu’s late works written in exile from the Nazis and the Czech communists, its preoccupations are spiritual, and involve eternal questions of life and death, yet are not really religious. It is a sort of Cold War requiem, beginning and ending contemplatively, but with examples of Martinu’s gift for music drama in the choral and solo writing, and in his always ingenious handling of the orchestra. Simon Callow’s narration may be a tad mannered, but the soloists — especially Lucy Crowe’s radiant soprano and Derek Welton’s youthful “Wagnerian” bass — are excellent, while Honeck’s fervent belief in the work is evident in the thrilling choral singing and orchestral playing he elicits from his epic forces. A discovery. HC