Piano Concerto / Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage

"Benjamin Frith, who has been attracting acclaim from my Fanfare colleagues for his recording of the piano works of Mendelssohn, now turns his attention to very different music, with a brilliant account of Tippett's Piano Concerto. ... The recorded sound tends to accentuate the shallow upper-string tone when the going gets tough, and in that sense is more genuine than reverberation-reinforced sound we often encounter. The bottom line has to be one of price, for the Naxos disc comes in the bargain basement, though there is nothing low-price about the product. Those of you who know little about Tippett should start here, as it is the ideal entry into his sound world, and you don't risk much of the family budget."
- Fanfare (David Denton), May-Apr 2000

"This is a highly desirable budget-priced Naxos release of two of the late Sir Michael Tippett's most well-loved works. The Ritual Dances adds up to a sizeable chunk of his first opera, the Midsummer Marriage, full of resonances of the countryside and the seasons, with darker overtones of birth, life and death (yes, almost a Rite of Spring, and almost as long). Their performance here from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under George Hurst is thrusting and colourful, with some wonderful woodwind solos. Breathing the same luminous, magical soundworld is Tippett's Piano Concerto of a few years later. Soloist in this finely-detailed, gently glowing account is Benjamin Frith."
- Birmingham Post (Christopher Morley), April 29, 2000

"The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under George Hurst do convincing justice to the radiant, intricate, ceaselessly inventive Dances from the opera The Midsummer Marriage... Benjamin Frith is unfazed by the torrent of notes in the Piano Concerto, and plays this beautiful work with tireless loveliness. A bargain-priced feast."
- Classic FM (Mark Pappenheim), Feb 2000

Michael Tippett was born in London on 2nd January, 1905, the second son of Henry William Tippett (a retired lawyer) and Isabel Clementina Binny Kemp, Tippett's father was of Cornish origin, his mother from Kent. He studied for his BMus degree at the Royal College of Music between 1923 and 1928, composition with Charles Wood and C. H. Kitson, piano with Aubin Raymar and conducting with Malcolm Sargent and Adrian Boult.