Sharp eyes will note that this collection was originally
released under the title Shakespeare at Covent Garden. Its
reappearance in new imposing livery, complete with Dieu et mon Droit
motif, gives a comforting permanence and establishment benediction to
Bishop. Not inappropriately then it was Prince Albert who had instigated
the composer’s knighthood in 1842. But Bishop’s picaresque career had
begun in the early 1800s with some precociously published songs and
his desire to become a jockey – a healthy ambition for a British composer
– was thwarted by ill health. Rising in eminence he was one of the founders
of the Philharmonic Society and worked successively at the Theatre Royal,
Covent Garden; Drury Lane, Dublin and at Vauxhall Gardens.
His settings of Shakespeare were numerous but contained
quixotic and baffling peculiarities. He often set corrupt texts – in
which he was, admittedly, hardly unique – but also employed others’
music. In some of the works recorded here, for example, he utilised
settings by Ravenscroft, Morley and Arne, scrupulously acknowledging
the borrowings, which only, oddly, adds an even greater patina of oddity
to the practice. As for the music I can only say that it’s delicious.
In the big, resonant but clear acoustic of All Saints Tooting it is
singers Susan Gritton and Julia Gooding who bear the main responsibilities
and they – so superbly athletic and expressive in baroque and classical
music – rise to the challenges posed by the "English Mozart."
In Lo! Here the gentle lark Gritton employs tasteful embellishments,
doesn’t rush or falter in her runs, flecks her line with the trippingest
of trills and is alert to all dynamics. Bishop’s rather retrogressive
Mozartian impulse is evident in Should he upbraid with its virtuoso
flute runs but I feel his setting puts infelicitous strain on the vocal
line, breaking it inaptly and unnecessarily. Susan Gritton valiantly
copes. The first part of Who is Sylvia? opens with maestoso conviction
and the Consort break out into individual traceries in the faster section;
there’s a Madrigalian quality to Bishop’s writing, an awareness of and
affection for the earlier glories of the English stage that is at once
affecting and charming. It’s obvious limitations in a contemporary context
– Beethoven, Schubert – seem beside the point given Bishop’s own populist
intent with the settings.
When that I was a little tiny boy is vigorous
with whooping horns and the operatic flourishes in It was a lover
and his lass disclose Gooding artfully twisting and coiling the
line. Pickett’s rustic flute beguiles the ear in Under the greenwood
tree – the jog trot accompaniment, piping clarinet, precise articulation,
dynamic control of consort and solo line, are all accomplished with
real spirit and conviction. Mark Tucker sings out well in Flower
of this purple dye, robust but elegant and Now the hungry lions
roar begins with a really earthy brass roar. The two leading singers,
Gooding and Gritton, join forces in Orpheus with his lute with
its plangent central section. The disc ends with more of Bishop’s lyrical
impulse – nicely orchestrated, harmonically alive, with a fortepiano
appearance and a magnificently dramatic multiple fake ending. The big
cast of singers and performers are suitably lively and with an edition
prepared by Michael Pilkington from Bishop’s own full conducting score
this disc will give you a lot of pleasure.
Jonathan Woolf
Musicians of the Globe/Philip
Pickett