The mix BASIL RAMSEY listens to Charlotte Brontë set over music Eternally Free

This record, issued by the Brontë Society, contains twenty four poems read by Geraldine Robertson-Brown to music played as an additional dimension [listen -- track 16, 0:00-1:32]. Composer Philip Henderson has created this like an artistic frame, and scored it in scale to the speaking voice.

My continuing reaction is that no compelling reason may be found to support such a venture. Obviously the Brontë poems are the artistic foundation for the rest, and there could well be those who favour such treatment. But there is an unavoidable wriggle of embarrassment for those who might find the music a tiresome presence, and the lesser of the two artistic elements in value or even purpose.

As for the kernel of this presentation, Miss Robertson-Brown reads the poetry with clarity, expression and colour. I close this by accepting the probability that -- all-in-all -- the overall concept is firm and that I dislike mixes where one element is less than the others.

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Record Box is Music & Vision's regular Saturday series of shorter CD reviews