Brian: The Tigers
Teresa Cahill, Marilyn Hill-Smith, Alan Opie & Kenneth Woollam
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Lionel Friend
The Tigers is a rich, inventive and unique score. Testament, the Havergal Brian Society and the BBC are to be congratulated on making this magnificent recording generally available and for doing...
Brian: The Tigers
Teresa Cahill, Marilyn Hill-Smith, Alan Opie & Kenneth Woollam
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Lionel Friend
Purchase product
The Tigers is a rich, inventive and unique score. Testament, the Havergal Brian Society and the BBC are to be congratulated on making this magnificent recording generally available and for doing...
About
Testament is proud to present the first CD release of Havergal Brian's opera The Tigers (composed 1917-19, orchestrated 1928-29), from its BBC Radio 3 studio premiere performance recorded in May 1983. Lionel Friend conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, together with a huge cast of some of the finest British soloists of the day. The original performance was enabled by the Havergal Brian Society's rediscovery of the full score, lost since WW2, and this release is issued with the Society's generous support.
Contents and tracklist
- Recorded Maida Vale Studios 3-8 January May 1983
- Teresa Cahill, Marilyn Hill-Smith, Alan Opie & Kenneth Woollam
- BBC Symphony Orchestra
- Lionel Friend
Spotlight on this release
-
Martyn Brabbins on The Dream of Gerontius (and Havergal Brian)
5th Feb 2026
The conductor discusses his new recording of Elgar's masterpiece with Huddersfield Choral Society, and reflects on how he became such an enthusiastic ambassador for the music of Havergal Brian (whose 150th birthday fell last week).
Awards and reviews
March 2015
The Tigers is a rich, inventive and unique score. Testament, the Havergal Brian Society and the BBC are to be congratulated on making this magnificent recording generally available and for doing so with such style. This is surely one of the most important releases of 2015.
14th January 2015
The BBC performance, with multiple roles taken by a cast which includes some of the finest British opera singers of the time, is immensely competent. There are no star performances as such, more a succession of cameos, but Friend gave the whole teeming performance real energy and drive.
24th January 2015
this 1983 BBC studio recording, issued on CD for the first time, reveals a stunningly inventive, eclectic score, performed here with gusto by a A-team cast of 1980s ENO regulars under Lionel Friend. Irresistible.
