Was an orchestral Hergest Ridge ever released?
The premiere concert, in December 1974, was covered by the BBC. There are bootleg copies of this recording around – probably mono only. The orchestra was The Royal Philharmonic conducted by David Bedford, and the guitarist was Steve Hillage. Another concert of the work was performed on May 5th 1976 by The Scottish National Orchestra, again conducted by Bedford, with Hillage on guitar. (Andy Summers – later of The Police – took part in other performances). It was recorded by Radio Clyde (a Scottish radio station) and Virgin bought the rights. Mike never took part in the concert series and sadly Hergest Ridge is rarely played at his own concerts. The Scottish concert shows up on The Space Movie because Virgin owned the rights to it, and is more likely to be a stereo recording. Probably due to a veto from Mike, it has never had a proper release. There was a testpressing of The Space Movie soundtrack, but it was not the same as the film soundtrack. It is just a special mix of elements that
