"The Vision of Cleopatra," a "Tragic Poem for Orchestra, Soli, and Chorus," words by Gerald Cumberland, music by +Havergal Brian+, is inscribed to the Southport Triennial Festival, who gave it its first performance. Though not an actual setting of a scene or scenes from this play, the work owes much to Shakespearian inspiration. For instance, though Antony and Cleopatra belong to anyone, Iris and Charmian, who appear in this work, are essentially Shakespeare's creations. This "Tragic Poem" is scored for a very large orchestra, and two choruses, one large, the other small. In addition to the usual full modern orchestra, there are two extra _ad lib._ horn parts, making six, and four { 4} trumpet parts. For the sake of "Oriental colour," the percussion list is so unusually heavy that I must quote it: glockenspiel, tympani, bass drum, side drum, triangle, castanets, Indian drum, gong, large cymbals, and small cymbals--rather a healthy lot when they all get going! The work opens with a slave dance, _allegro con fuoco_, and is marked double _pianissimo_. After a few introductory bars (twelve), the dance proper begins, still very softly and in a curious syncopated rhythm. According to the composer's directions the dance grows "gradually wild and riotous," then comes a slower passage marked "yearning," followed by a long _stringendo_ passage leading to the climax, "wild and uneven"; this presently dies away, and Iris and Charmian have a long duet, the chorus occasionally breaking in, telling how the "Queen is sick for Antony," and how "once more
Venus and Bacchus meet, and all the world Stands still to watch the bliss of living gods."
The music here is very difficult; the rhythm changes often, every other bar, as does the key; the intervals are strangely unexpected, and the singer can look for no help from the orchestra. A passage marked "In regal martial style" ushers in the lovers, and we have a long vivid duet. Cleopatra sings a lengthy mystic solo, which is followed by an ominous chorus, at the end of which Antony seems to have died, for Cleopatra sings a very powerful dirge for him:--
Now all is finished, all is done, My world is dead; And he whose glory shamed the sun Lies shamed instead. These lips that frenzied him with love Have death bestowed.