Gustav Hoyer: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
NV6590 (Navona Records, CD)
FIRST RELEASE (2 February 2024)
Tracks: 14
℗ 2024 Navona Records
© 2024 Navona Records
Main country of recording: Hungary
Reviewer: John Dante Prevedini
Review of Gustav Hoyer: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner published on 12 May 2024
Kent Stephens, narrator (tracks 1-7)
The Budapest Film Orchestra
Peter Pejtsik, conductor
Gustav Hoyer:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (for orchestra and narrator)
1 Part I
2 Part II
3 Part III
4 Part IV
5 Part V
6 Part VI
7 Part VII
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (for orchestra)
8 Part I
9 Part II
10 Part III
11 Part IV
12 Part V
13 Part VI
14 Part VII
American composer Gustav Hoyer comes to Navona Records with an ambitious and harrowing seven-part orchestral setting of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Hoyer melds the spoken word and musical text-setting traditions into a hauntingly atmospheric narrative concerto, the Budapest Film Orchestra coming to life as supernatural forces and creatures in the text. Meanwhile, the narrator speaks of the Mariner's eternal penance, a stark contrast to the roiling orchestral timbres that puts listeners in the shoes of the frightened wedding guest fated to hear the Mariner's tale. An undoubtedly ghoulish but incredibly sophisticated musical illustration of Coleridge’s famed narrative, Hoyer is no-holds-barred in his talent for the narrative orchestra, producing a musical journey packed with all the intensity and horror of the text from which it hails.