McCabe, John - Edward II (Ballet in 2 Acts)

'Stirringly dramatic, strikingly colourful... it is good to see McCabe's recent 60th birthday being marked by a number of fine new recordings. This could prove the most widely popular of them all.' (International Record Review)

'A fine performance and excellent presentation make this an essential issue for anybody interested in McCabe's music' (Classic CD)

'Barry Wordsworth gets committed playing from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia ... the best playing they have produced on disc to date. Notes are excellent, as is the recorded sound ... a real winner' (Fanfare)

'McCabe's music communicates with an expressive fervour that easily holds the listener in its thrall over nearly two hours. It's not just the superbly judged orchestration and wealth of memorable invention that impress. Above all, it's McCabe's ability to forge his tightly knit material into a dramatically convincing and organically coherent whole that marks him out as a composer of exceptional gifts ... No raise can be too high for Barry Wordsworth's fluent, pungently theatrical direction, not to mention the unstinting application of the excellent Royal Ballet Sinfonia (which has well and truly assimilated McCabe's idiom into its bloodstream) (Gramophone)

Edward II ruled medieval England between 1307 and 1327 and is most commonly remembered for his unrestrained favouritism for certain courtiers. The most extreme cases were those of Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, with whom many modern historians now allege that he had homosexual relationships.
The ballet was created by renowned choreographer, David Bintley, from the play by Christopher Marlowe - probably the greatest of Shakespeare's rival playwrights - and focuses on the relationships between Edward and his Queen Isabella, Edward and Piers Gaveston and Isabella and Mortimer, displayed by an inventive and highly-charged score.

McCabe reflects the medieval period using various ancient-sounding melodies, such as the plainchant dirge that accompanies the funerals of Edward I at the opening and Edward II at the end. However, he mixes old with new. To create the desired effect an electric guitar is used to underscore particular moments of tension.

The work was successfully premiered by the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany in 1995 and David Bintley brought Edward II with him on taking up the directorship of Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1997, which company revived his production and toured it around Britain in 1998-9, attracting great critical acclaim and two awards. This is John McCabe's third original ballet score.

Recorded at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, on 3 4 5 November 1999