When a colleague asked me on Facebook about a Joe Hill opera by English composer and leftist activist Alan Bush this naturally lead to installment 7 in my unofficial summer series about justly or unjustly forgotten opera works. On the shelves of obscure and often as yet unheard down-loads I found not Bush's Joe Hill (premiered at the Berlin State Opera in 1970) but a 1969 BBC broadcast of his Men of Blackmoor (1956), an opera about miners. Stanford Robinson leads the Northern BBC Singers & Orchestra with a number of soloists in a strong but not too pompous rendering, everyone sounds committed.
This is fascinating listening, especially in the year of (also very politically committed) composer colleague Britten's 100 years jubilee. The story of the opera 'Men of Blackmoor' is based upon the history of the miners of Northumberland and Durham between the years 1800 and 1835. The music of Men of Blackmoor is often overtly simple in form and expression, robust with stirring choruses for male voices and the commitment very much on the sleeve but it seldom sounds banal and there is always a strong underlying pulse to carry the drama.
Grove tells me that "all four operas depict the workers' struggle" but I had never heard of Bush before. An exact contemporary of Weill, he was a member of the communist party from 1935 and for all his professional life (1925-78) a teacher of the Royal Academy of Music, one of his students being Michael Nyman. Bush's grand operas about class conflicts usually premiered in the DDR before being heard in Britain but his first, Wat Tyler, about earlier rebels, had got an Arts Council prize in 1951.
and a scene from Men of Blackmoor - Sarah taunting the soldiers - Leipzig, October 1959.
Read more about Alan Bush and his work here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bush and - more officially - here http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/ Especially on Men of Blackmoor here http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/operas/blackmoor.asp?room=Music
There is nothing from Bush's operas on youtube but here you can listen to his 2nd symphony, "Nottingham" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8inQDAB50U&feature=youtu.be
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