Description
In his day Sir Granville Bantock (1868-1946) was a very successful and highly respected composer and conductor. As well as being Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham and Principal of (what is now) the Birmingham Conservatoire, he was also influential in founding the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
He wrote several large-scale works but the work arranged here – The Witches’ Dance – is from incidental music Bantock wrote in 1926 for a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The piece – which is liberally peppered with Dies Irae references – was played as a stand-alone work by members of the London Symphony Orchestra at the Three Choirs Festival in 1927, after which a reviewer said, “Hereafter I shall always think of the bassoon as a weird sister.” It was also played at a Birmingham Children’s Concert in 1929 where it was remarked that, “since … the bassoon … is conventionally taken as a humorous instrument, these witches … were greeted with laughter … Prof. Bantock’s witches seem a merry set.”
Originally for bassoon trio this arrangement is for four bassoons, giving each player balanced and interesting parts whilst including some (much-needed) bars’ rest too. Bantock’s bassoon trio The Witches’ Frolic has also been separately rearranged for four bassoons.
