Fate's Revenge

Peter Tranchell wrote the music for the Ballet Rambert's "Fate's Revenge" in 1950-51. The CUL archive holdings reveal the work was originally titled "Rebellion at Bath", then "Bunbury Ball". The fullest score in the CUL appears to be a 16-leaf piano score with annotations for orchestration by Geoffrey Corbett.

We will be reviewing and typesetting this score in the near future.

The following information and photograph is derived from the Rambert database.

Based on the poem 'The Rebellion in Bath' by Mr. Goosequill, the ballet was created for the Bath Assembly, but previewed under the title 'Surprise Ballet' on 4 May 1951 at the Winter Gardens, Morecambe.

World premiere: 21 May 1951, Ballet Rambert, Theatre Royal, Bath. Find out more here.

Source: Programme and reference files in the Rambert Archive WORK/0151

Peter's father wrote to him quoting a review in the Manchester Guardian Weekly of the ‘Bath ballet’:

‘The local angle was also stressed in the ballet performances, for the Ballet Rambert (…) gave a new work “Fate’s Revenge”, based on an old Bath satire. This work, with choreography by David Paltenghi, was better than one would have expected of such a pièce d’occasion. The story is the downfall of a pretentious assembly-room master of ceremonies. Peter Tranchell’s music is wittily scored and smartly tuneful-discordant, with no period pastiche…’