Havergal Brian: The Cenci – Millenium Sinfonia & James Kelleher

The Cenci (1951–52) is Havergal Brian’s operatic realisation of Shelley’s gruesome tale of incest and parricide in Renaissance Italy. The score calls it simply ‘Opera in Eight Scenes’, but it rarely goes in for grand tunes; instead, it is an unusual but highly effective hybrid – a music-drama focused on the intense delivery of Shelley’s text, where the declamatory style of the vocal lines and the participation of the orchestra almost as lead character make it also part vocal symphony, part ritual, with Brian’s freewheeling writing reflecting Shelley’s fascination with the struggle between good and evil.