 Long awaited release commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the studio album.
Format: CD / Cat No: FMGZ236CD / PRE-ORDER Release Date: 29/08/2025
Track Listing: 1. Hergest Ridge, Part 1 / 2. Hergest Ridge, Part 2
More information: Released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the studio album, the long-awaited issue of the FULL broadcast of the Orchestral Hergest Ridge is now available on CD.
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.
Almost immediately after finishing the score for The Orchestral Tubular Bells, David Bedford embarked on the orchestration of Hergest Ridge. With this in hand, the first-ever live performances of these works were scheduled to take place at The Royal Albert Hall (RAH) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, on December 9th 1974, but as Mike Oldfield was still resisting any Involvement with either of these performances, they had to go ahead without him.
In fact, in late 1974, he was so stressed by all the pressures upon him that he had gone to Italy and Greece with his brother, Terry. However, two or three weeks prior to the Royal Albert Hall performances, Steve Hillage had already been recruited to play the electric guitar parts, thus relieving Mike of those duties. Contrary to some reports, those December 9th performances were not broadcast live. It was not until January 18th 1975, that the extracts of the concert were first broadcast by the BBC – simultaneously, on BBC Two Television and on BBC Radio 3.
It is not even certain that David Bedford had fully completed the orchestration of Hergest Ridge by the time of the Royal Albert Hall performances, because he also had to prepare for his Stars End concert at the same venue, again with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, on November 5th.
However, after the success of the December concert at the Royal Albert Hall, similar concerts were planned, one such being at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. The Glasgow concert had resulted from an idea suggested by a radio station, and the intention was to record The Orchestral Hergest Ridge for broadcast. Two live concerts were scheduled for September 4th and 5th, 1975, and subsequently, after all the negotiations had been completed, a recording date was set for September 5th.
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.
Note: Recording quality can vary on these kind of releases.
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