Helen Field; David Wilson-Johnson; Ingveldur Yr Jonsdottir; Stuart Kale; Justin Lavender; Jeffrey Carl; Nicholas Buxton; Devon Harrison; Serena Kay; Millennium Sinfonia; James Kelleher - Havergal Brian: The Cenci

The Cenci (1951-52) is Havergal Brian's operatic realisation of Shelley's gruesome tale of incest and parricide in Renaissance Italy. The score calls it simply 'Opera in Eight Scenes', but it rarely goes in for grand tunes; instead, it is an unusual but highly effective hybrid - a music-drama focused on the intense delivery of Shelley's text, where the declamatory style of the vocal lines and the participation of the orchestra almost as lead character make it also part vocal symphony, part ritual, with Brian's freewheeling writing reflecting Shelley's fascination with the struggle between good and evil.