Romantic India

[John Napier]

How incredibly unpatriotic of me. There is Australian composer Peggy
Glanville Hicks' opera "The Transposed Heads", based on a story by Thomas
Mann "Pariah", apparently drawn from Goethe (whose translation of
Shakuntala was of course the inspiration for Schubert). A tale of inter-
caste love, ritual self-decapitation and resuscitation gone wrong. The
liner notes for the Australian CD claim that the story derives from
Bhagavad Gita (we have a long way to go here in Western Classical Music
Land).

The music sounds like a Vaughan-Williams English Pastorale meets the Barber
of Bhagdad.

John Napier