THE WORLD OF IAN BOSTRIDGE
George Frideric
HANDEL
Israel in Egypt: The enemy said (1), Thou in thy mercy
(2)
Igor STRAVINSKY
The Rake's Progress: Aha! He's here! The auctioneer (3)
Johann Sebastian BACH
St. Matthew Passion: O Schmerz!; Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen
(4)
Gerald FINZI
Dies Natalis: Rhapsody; The Salutation (5)
Benjamin BRITTEN
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Asleep, my love? (6)
Igor STRAVINSKY
Cantata: Ricercar II (7); Westron Wind (8)
Michael NYMAN
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs: 4. This damned witch Sycorax; 5. The
fringed curtains of thine eye; 6. There's nothing ill can dwell
(9)
Ian Bostridge (tenor), with
Catherine Bott (soprano) (9), Rosemary Hardy (soprano) (8), Hilary Summers
(alto) (9), Michael Chance (alto) (2), Boys' Choir of St. Bavo Cathedral,
Haarlem (4), Netherlands Chamber Choir (4), Tokyo Opera Singers (3), Academy
of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (5), Brandenburg Consort (1, 2), Ensemble
Instrumental de Basse-Normandie (9), London Symphony Orchestra (6), Orchestra
of the 18th Century (4), Saito Kinen Orchestra (3), Schönberg
Ensemble (7, 8)/Frans Brüggen (4), Stephen Cleobury (1, 2), Sir Colin
Davis (6), Dominique Debart (9), Reinbert de Leeuw (7, 8), Sir Neville Marriner
(5), Seiji Ozawa
(3)
DECCA 467
788-2
[57.21]
Crotchet
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Is this really the world of Ian Bostridge? The bare mention, in Raymond
McGill's notes, of a solo recital at the Wigmore Hall in 1995 is the only
hint we get that Bostridge might just possibly, at some time or another,
have sung a few lieder. Yet it was his Die Schöne
Müllerin which got him a Gramophone award in 1996 and plenty more
lieder and song have followed. Without in any way belittling
his achievements in opera and oratorio it is perhaps his qualities as a solo
recitalist which have brought him so quickly to the fore. But his records
of this material are for other labels.
Quite frankly, when an artist has divided his work between several companies,
I don't know how fair it is for one of these to bundle together a selection
of that part of his repertoire which he has recorded for them, and try to
pass it off as a rounded portrait.
Having got that out of the way, we do get a reasonable view of Bostridge
in the baroque and 20th Century repertoire. The Britten aria is
a fine test of his considerable technical abilities. He has a small, typically
English tenor voice, with an even, musical timbre which lends beauty to some
pieces which have in the past been the subject of noisy approximation. The
extract from The Rake's Progress is effortlessly mellifluous and the
clarity of his diction makes the lack of texts in the booklet a little less
regrettable. It may seem odd to go from Handel to Stravinsky and then back
to Bach. However, as a result of a small gap between one and the other and
the abrasive, bumpy phrasing insisted on by Brüggen, the inattentive
listener might not even notice when the composer changes! Something closer
to what is generally thought of as a Bach style is to be found in the Stravinsky
Ricercar. This extended movement is a tour de force from Bostridge
for it is by no means easy to hold such a steady, gravely beautiful, line
over a ten-minute span.
The Finzi Rhapsody lacks the radiance some have found in it, mainly
because of Marriner's over-purposeful conducting; The Salutation is
better.
The Nyman pieces make a fascinating sound but the odd change of tempo or
shift of tonality are not enough to convince me that the music is going anywhere
except round and round in circles. Since it concludes by just fading away
we shall never know whether it caught its own tail in the end, but I doubt
it.
Christopher Howell
