Finally, the Hallé orchestra’s proprietary label decides to do something useful instead of lousy historical reissues or second-rate Elgar. The complete incidental music to The Wasps is a very large score, containing numerous choruses and melodramas (music with voice-over) in addition to the items familiar in the suite. The most spectacular of these is the Parabasis that concludes Act 2, a 20-minute extravaganza in which the chorus comes forward and addresses the audience directly. It’s very beautiful, vintage early RVW, but then so is the entire score. However, I do wish that the dialog had been omitted, even in the melodramas. Despite David Pountney’s best efforts as translator it adds nothing, and the Cockney accent of Henry Goodman’s Procleon sounds suspiciously like the new commercial voice of Geico auto insurance’s talking gecko. Anyway, its irritating. Happily, you can skip most of it (save for the melodramas) and still hear the composer’s contributions.
The musical performance, though, is generally good, and certainly interesting. Vaughan Williams’ original orchestration differs in many respects from that of the suite, and this is quite evident right from start of the overture. It’s less colorful in some ways, reflecting the smaller forces available in the theater, but it’s also less padded. I do wish that Elder had delivered a more perky account of the overture: he sounds a bit like Boult on a diet–slow but not rotund and jolly enough to justify the measured tempo. The anonymous choir also isn’t the best, but I suspect the importance of the repertoire will be such that fans of the composer won’t care.
Incidentally, some PR whiz has decided that “The Hallé Orchestra” is far too complicated a name, and so now the whole crew, including the chorus, seems to be operating under the rubric of “Hallé”, plain and simple, as if everyone should know what that means. Perhaps whoever advocated this tactic read that popular dog-training book that suggests that canines (and classical music lovers, evidently) respond better to names with as few syllables as possible. Never mind. Manchester’s own orchestra has enough trouble competing with the BBC Philharmonic, which enjoys a far more prolific recording career courtesy of Chandos. Even with room for improvement, I can certainly recommend this useful release.
