Description
Released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the studio album, the long-awaited issue of the FULL broadcast of the Orchestral Hergest Ridge is finally available on vinyl. Limited to only 1,000 world-wide, pressed on virgin (no pun intended) 180 gram vinyl, with specially commissioned artwork spread out over a tri-fold cover and a faithful reproduction of the event program.
"Richard Branson's initial idea for the orchestral versions of Mike Oldfield's first two albums may have been encouraged by the fact that David Bedford had just recorded his own orchestral album for Virgin Records, Star's End, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), and with Mike himself playing guitar. This had been recorded in Barking Town Hall (a venue used frequently as a studio for orchestral recordings). Still, well before the end of the summer of 1974, the scores for The Orchestral Tubular Bells were already completed, and everything necessary for its recording had been arranged. Barking Town Hall was once more to be the recording venue, and the RPO was again chosen as the orchestra for the album. Virgin's Chris Hollebone and John Jacob would work on the recordings alongside the broadcast team. The newly rebuilt Manor Studio was made available for the mixing in Spring of 1976, where Mick Glossop (who had mixed The Orchestral Tubular Bells album) this time acted as a technical advisor, to help guide the broadcast team through the intricacies of The Manor's (then) very advanced (and certainly quite unusual) mixing equipment. In 1979, some excerpts from The Orchestral Hergest Ridge recording in Glasgow (not the RPO London recording) were used in the soundtrack of The Space Movie, which was a documentary film directed by Tony Palmer, for Virgin Films. This documentary had been made at the request of NASA to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, but there was no other release of The Orchestral Hergest Ridge beyond the soundtrack of the film itself. However, around the time of the Tubular Bells' 50th anniversary, a Compact Cassette of the Scottish concert came to light. When it reappeared, the recording was found to be in remarkably good condition, and with the help of modern-day digital editing and restoration equipment, a very presentable reproduction of The Orchestral Hergest Ridge can now again be heard."
