BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson

Bennett, R R: Symphony No. 1
Bennett, R R: A History of the Thé Dansant
Bennett, R R: Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune
Bennett, R R: Zodiac

Bennett had a gift for human relationships – family, partners, friends, and fellow artists. Occasionally, his personal loyalty could become an obstacle to his creativity but overwhelmingly, his relationships were an inspiration. Each of the four works recorded here, in surround sound, has connections to a significant individual in his life. The composition of his First Symphony coincided with the arrival in his life of Dan Klein, who would become his long-term partner. Zodiac is dedicated to the composer Elisabeth Lutyens, whose music and personality Bennett cherished throughout his life, despite her often caustic manner. A History of the ‘Thé Dansant’ sets poems by his older sister, the poet Meg Peacocke, and doubles as a perceptive but unsentimental memoir of their long-dead parents. And Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune is dedicated to the conductor John Wilson, with whom Bennett shared a musical connection that deepened into a true and lasting friendship.

"The three shorter works are the real gems here: Connolly is by turns louche and affectionate in the settings of poems by Bennett’s sister (inspired by photographs of the siblings’ parents on holiday during the 1920s), and each portrait of the Zodiac springs to life so vividly that you’re never in any doubt as to which sign’s being depicted. The Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune will charm anyone who loves Warlock’s Capriol Suite and Vaughan Williams’s Tallis Fantasia." - Katherine Cooper, Presto Classical, March 2019.