Sadly almost unknown even by most of his admirers, the opera "The Fall of the House of Usher" ( based upon Edgar Allen Poe's book ) is one of Hammill's most ambitious, difficult, demanding and awesome masterpieces to date. The opera was slowly elaborated along decades, from the initial idea in 1973 to the first version, released in 1991, up to the final and definitive version almost entirely re-recorded and re-released in 1999, in a deluxe CD edition. Almost all instruments played by Hammil himself, overlaying keyboards and overdriven guitars, and counting with several other guest singers interpreting all the characters of the story. The libretto was done by his old friend from the very early Van Der Graaf Generator days, Chris Judge Smith. It also counts with Stuart Gordon's violin.
I don't know the second version so well. I like the original so much, that the first time I heard the second recording, I was deterred from giving it another spin. The 1991 original is still my go-to version.
Masterpiece.
Sadly almost unknown even by most of his admirers, the opera "The Fall of the House of Usher" ( based upon Edgar Allen Poe's book ) is one of Hammill's most ambitious, difficult, demanding and awesome masterpieces to date. The opera was slowly elaborated along decades, from the initial idea in 1973 to the first version, released in 1991, up to the final and definitive version almost entirely re-recorded and re-released in 1999, in a deluxe CD edition. Almost all instruments played by Hammil himself, overlaying keyboards and overdriven guitars, and counting with several other guest singers interpreting all the characters of the story. The libretto was done by his old friend from the very early Van Der Graaf Generator days, Chris Judge Smith. It also counts with Stuart Gordon's violin.
I don't know the second version so well. I like the original so much, that the first time I heard the second recording, I was deterred from giving it another spin. The 1991 original is still my go-to version.