The Land of the Mountain and the Flood

The Land of the Mountain and the Flood is a concert overture for orchestra, composed by Hamish MacCunn in 1887 and first performed at the Crystal Palace on 5 November of that year."Crystal Palace", The Musical Times, December 1887, p. 726 The title is taken from Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto vi, stanza 2: O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of the heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand! After the premiere The Musical Times commented, "The work – which is spirited and bold in conception and brilliantly scored – was finely played and enthusiastically received". After an 1890 performance at the Crystal Palace, Bernard Shaw wrote of the piece:

In 1968, the overture came to renewed attention when EMI included it on an LP "Music of the Four Countries" (ASD 2400), played by the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Alexander Gibson. It gained wider familiarity by being used from 1973 to 1976 as the theme for the BBC television series Sutherland's Law."CD Review", Birmingham Daily Post, 27 January 1996, p. 39

Recordings

OrchestraConductorFirst issueRef Scottish National Alexander Gibson 1968 WorldCat Royal Scottish National Sir Alexander Gibson 1985 WorldCat Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Grant Llewellyn 1993 WorldCat BBC Scottish Symphony Martyn Brabbins 1995 WorldCat Royal Ballet Sinfonia John Wilson 1999 WorldCat

References

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