BMS News

The British Music Society's quarterly newsletter popped through my letter box the other week and has a number of rather interesting events in it. Top of the list is the performance on Rememberance Sunday, at the Albert Hall, of John Foulds's mammoth A World Requiem, a work which was performed at the Rememberance day commemorations in the 1920's, but has not been heard since 1926.

Also on a large scale, Granville Bantock's Omar Khayam has finally been recorded by Chandos. The ever growing Bantock edition on Chandos has been circling round this mammoth work for some years and finally it has been recorded, with Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Toby Spence and Roderick Williams, BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra under Vernon Handley. I can't wait.

Colin Scott Sutherland's review of the new Francis George Scott disc caught my eye. Partly through his use of the word kenspeckle and partly because he gives the song recital, by Lisa Milne and Roderick Williams on Signum, such a thumbs up. Another disc for the wish list I think.

Finally, an interesting foot-note to the 1st World War. In 1914 a group of English musicians set out for the Bayreuth Festival. When war was declared they were interned as enemy aliens. Among them were Benjamin Dale and Edgar Bainton, director of the conservatoire in Newcastle. Bainton organised the camp into a hive a musical activity. And back in England, his wife was just as active in keeping the conservatoire going so that on his return Bainton could resume his activities as if nothing had happened.