Tough love | 23 February 2017

Frank Martin is one of those composers whose work seems to survive only by virtue of constantly renewed neglect. His quite large body of work is well represented in the CD catalogues, but rarely performed in the UK. One of his most powerful works is Le Vin herbé, though his fully-fledged opera on The Tempest also deserves revival. Welsh National Opera, ever adventurous, has mounted a staged version of Le Vin herbé, and despite its being more of a cantata than an opera and in English. The text is based on Joseph Bédier’s version of the Tristan myth, so some reference to Wagner, in discussing it, is inevitable. Written at the end of the 1930s, Martin’s piece is deliberately non-Germanic, though clearly anyone writing a work with Tristan as a model at any time would be mad. Nonetheless, for any literate opera lover, thoughts of Wagner’s masterpiece are inevitable. Indeed, Vin may be one of those rare works that need to be experienced in relation to a preceding one.