[ Chandos / CD ]
Release Date: Sunday 19 May 2024
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Although he had initially declined the commission, Delius was persuaded to write the incidental music for Hassan by the actor and director Basil Dean, in July 1920, for performances he was planning for His Majesty's Theatre, London, the following year. Much of the music was drafted within a few weeks, and the score would eventually prove one of the greatest successes of Delius's career. Dean's plans for the project encountered significant obstacles and delays, however, and he had to commission additional music from Delius to cover the production's complex scene changes. The London première eventually took place on 20 September 1923 and was a critical sensation. Flecker's play is a sinuous double-narrative that intertwines the twin stories of the lovelorn but worldly wise Hassan, confectioner at the court of the cruel and vindictive Caliph Haroun al Rashid (called Haroun ar Rashid in Flecker's play), and the young lovers Pervaneh and Rafi, caught up in the aftermath of a failed uprising and condemned to a terrifying and brutally protracted death. In tone and setting, Flecker's text drew on nineteenth-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights as well as other heavily fictionalised accounts and travel literature. Very much a product of the racial and class-based attitudes of its time, the play revels in imaginary scenes of a despotic Eastern court and its gruesomely barbaric practices.
How seriously was it taken in its day? More to the point, how seriously can we take it now? After listening, I really can't say...But the music itself, stylishly delivered by the Britten Sinfonia and its Voices, and full of echoes of Rimsky-Korsakov and other late 19th-century Russians, demands to be taken seriously.
- BBC Music Magazine
Zeb Soanes could read the telephone directory and still captivate, so his vivid range of voices here is a special treat to complement his natural way of tempting a listener into the story.
- Gramophone
A Child Of Our Time (1939‒41)
Part I
Part II