Victorian Concert Overtures

'More precious evidence of the hidden riches of British music during the 19th century. A splendid collection' (CDReview)
'67 minutes of delightful, ear-catching musical cameos' (American Record Guide)

'This praiseworthy Hyperion disc certainly deserves the consideration of all serious devotees of English music' (Gramophone)

THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF GREAT BRITAIN is as long established as that of any European country and has enjoyed several golden eras. Nevertheless it has to be conceded that there was an awful ring of truth about the nineteenth-century German jibe 'Das Land ohne Musik' ('the land without music'), for at that time British music had been at a low ebb since the death of Handel. Many reasons have been advanced to account for this and they point to one conclusion: what the Germans were essentially referring to as 'music' was opera and, more specifically, the genre that had grown out of opera - orchestral music. During the nineteenth century the German-speaking countries had a virtual monopoly of symphonic and orchestral music, and its influence on the rest of Europe was immense. Lacking a native operatic tradition, and thereby the organisations that engaged orchestras on a permanent basis, Britain was regrettably slow to turn to this rapidly developing medium.

Around the time of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne things began to look up. In 1813 the Philharmonic Society had been founded by a group of musical enthusiasts in order to promote orchestral concerts. In 1822 the Royal Academy of Music was established, and not surprisingly many of the composers who were to rouse the country from its orchestral torpor were trained there. The composer of the first of the overtures on this CD is a case in point. Despite his Scottish name, Sir George Macfarren (1813-1887) was of English descent and born in London. At the age of sixteen he entered the newly opened RAM where Sterndale Bennett was a fellow pupil, and he went on to become not only a prolific composer in all forms (his cantata May Day and opera Robin Hood achieving notable success) but also a pillar of the British musical establishment. In 1860 he went prematurely blind, yet for the last eleven years of his life he was both Principal of the RAM and Professor of Music at Cambridge.