专辑简介

King Olaf is a long dramatic cantata, written before the great oratorios (The Apostles, THe Kingdom, The Dream of Gerontius). It is very Wagnerian in style with many influences of Parsifal and also Goetterdaemmerung.

I had never heard the work until I bought this CD. It is an excellent performance, but the work itself does not hang together as well as the later cantata Caractacus. It is better than The Black Knight which is the accompanying work. The Black Knight performance is not nearly as good as the rival Chandos version. the smaller works are also of interest.