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THE PERFECT FOOL
Posted by Paul Corfield Godfrey on November 19, 2021, 10:16 am
I note that in his review of the Lyrita release of the 1967 Groves broadcast of The Perfect Fool, John Quinn made reference to the later Handley 1995 broadcast. I must admit to being surprised that the latter has not yet found its way onto CD, more particularly since it avoids some of the elements - cut dialogue, intrusive narration and yawning sound effects - which John found troublesome in the Groves performance. I would also say that the Handley broadcast, by virtue of giving us the score exactly as Holst wrote it, makes a better case for the music as well, including one or two short sections which Groves omitted. I knew and owned a cassette copy of the Groves broadcast for many years (and I am sure that the Itter transfer is far superior in quality), but even so I found the Handley superior in nearly every way - as I pointed out in two reviews of Davis/Chandos recordings of Holst scores for this site in 2013 and 2018. So perhaps we might hope that this might not be "the only chance you'll ever have to hear The Perfect Fool" on CD?
In the meantime let us nonetheless express our thanks to Lyrita for making the opera available on CD at all.
Re: THE PERFECT FOOL
Posted by Nick Barnard on November 19, 2021, 8:35 pm, in reply to "THE PERFECT FOOL"
For the curious - the complete Handley version is available via the miracle of YouTube here....
Previous Message
I note that in his review of the Lyrita release of the 1967 Groves broadcast of The Perfect Fool, John Quinn made reference to the later Handley 1995 broadcast. I must admit to being surprised that the latter has not yet found its way onto CD, more particularly since it avoids some of the elements - cut dialogue, intrusive narration and yawning sound effects - which John found troublesome in the Groves performance. I would also say that the Handley broadcast, by virtue of giving us the score exactly as Holst wrote it, makes a better case for the music as well, including one or two short sections which Groves omitted. I knew and owned a cassette copy of the Groves broadcast for many years (and I am sure that the Itter transfer is far superior in quality), but even so I found the Handley superior in nearly every way - as I pointed out in two reviews of Davis/Chandos recordings of Holst scores for this site in 2013 and 2018. So perhaps we might hope that this might not be "the only chance you'll ever have to hear The Perfect Fool" on CD?
In the meantime let us nonetheless express our thanks to Lyrita for making the opera available on CD at all.
Re: THE PERFECT FOOL
Posted by Stephen Lloyd on November 24, 2021, 10:21 pm, in reply to "THE PERFECT FOOL"
Vernon Handley's broadcast of 'The Perfect Fool' (25.12.95) was issued on CD in 2007 by the Oriel Music Trust OMT128 in excellent sound and with the programme's full introduction. Unfortunately it may not be currently available.
Previous Message
I note that in his review of the Lyrita release of the 1967 Groves broadcast of The Perfect Fool, John Quinn made reference to the later Handley 1995 broadcast. I must admit to being surprised that the latter has not yet found its way onto CD, more particularly since it avoids some of the elements - cut dialogue, intrusive narration and yawning sound effects - which John found troublesome in the Groves performance. I would also say that the Handley broadcast, by virtue of giving us the score exactly as Holst wrote it, makes a better case for the music as well, including one or two short sections which Groves omitted. I knew and owned a cassette copy of the Groves broadcast for many years (and I am sure that the Itter transfer is far superior in quality), but even so I found the Handley superior in nearly every way - as I pointed out in two reviews of Davis/Chandos recordings of Holst scores for this site in 2013 and 2018. So perhaps we might hope that this might not be "the only chance you'll ever have to hear The Perfect Fool" on CD?
In the meantime let us nonetheless express our thanks to Lyrita for making the opera available on CD at all.
Re: THE PERFECT FOOL
Posted by Paul Corfield Godfrey on November 25, 2021, 8:03 pm, in reply to "THE PERFECT FOOL"
When reviewing various recordings of Tristan und Isolde for this site back in August 2018 Ralph Moore made reference to a CD set of that work by the Oriel Music Trust, describing it as "not a commercially available recording (the Oriel Music Trust is a charity and proceeds go to The Musicians Benevolent Fund)." Although the Trust used to regularly advertise in the classified section of Opera magazine, they never seem to have published a list of available recordings and I was certainly unaware that the Handley broadcast of The Perfect Fool was ever issued on CD. Their schedule of mainly off-air broadcast transcripts would certainly seem to have placed their issues into what would have been described as the 'pirate' category, or at best the copyright status of the releases might be regarded as dubious (as also would seem to be the case with the YouTube relay). In the meantime the Oriel website no longer exists.
All of which reinforces the need for a proper commercial release of the performance. But then again the BBC have still not reissued their old Artium sets of the early Delius operas which were once commercially available, so I don't suppose we can anticipate anything soon.