Beyond My Dream: Music for Greek Plays – Joyful Company of Singers’ female voices join mezzo soprano soloist Heather Lowe and Britten Sinfonia conducted by Alan Tongue in this premiere recording of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, written in 1911 for three plays by Euripides: The Bacchae, Electra and Iphigenia in Tauris.

Isadora Duncan had asked Vaughan Williams to write music for her to dance to within The Bacchae and he also worked with translator Gilbert Murray. A planned production of Iphigenia in Tauris did not come off, but there was a public performance of the music alone in May 1912.

Conductor Alan Tongue has transcribed the music from parts and scores in the British Library, realising some of it from short score. Albion Records has just issued their CD of the works, presenting more than an hour of previously unrecorded music that demonstrates the early maturity of Vaughan Williams as well as the versatility in choruses and additional solos of the JCS soprano and alto sections!

Editors choice in the Gramophone. Read the review here

A clip from the CD can be heard on YouTube here and the CD can be purchased here