Difficult to know to
whom to ascribe the greatest credit
– the performers or the engineer. The
engineer in this case is the same person
as the producer, Tim Handley, who has
provided a recording at once clear and
spacious, able to take the massive choral
statements as well as reproduce accurately
the tonal beauty of the two vocal soloists.
Joan Rodgers and Christopher Maltman
are two of the UK’s best-loved young
singers. Maltman recently impressed
in the role of Tarquinius (Rape of
Lucretia) for ENO at the Barbican
(http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2003/Oct03/britten711.htm)
and he is no less imposing here.
The standard of recording
establishes itself at the very beginning,
the brass fanfare being notably well-balanced.
Interpretatively, whether the choral
arrival on the word ‘Sea’ (‘Beholds
the sea itself’) is as awe-inspiring
as it might be is questionable, but
the overall sense of Romantic flow is
undeniable. It could be that Daniel
was deliberately holding his forces
back, as the recurrence of the line
(2’08) is endowed with substantially
more clout.
The first soloist to
enter is Maltman. Not as commanding
as some (John Carol Case for Boult with
the LPO is more successful – EMI CDM7
64016-2), he still conveys a very English
sense of integrity. A pity he is not
as inspirational as could have perhaps
been the case at the line ‘And out of
these a chant for the sailors of all
nations’ (5’27).
The listener has to
wait full eight minutes (8’24, to be
precise) before Joan Rodgers enters,
but it is worth the wait. Her ‘Flaunt
out, O sea’ combines beauty of voice
with fierce dignity, authority with
roundness of tone. More, she seems to
inspire the chorus into matching her
as they echo her sentiments and later,
her floated entrance at ‘Token of all
brave captains’ emerging from a choral
and orchestral mêlée (10’46)
provides a moment of pure magic. It
is the chorus that, alas, lets the side
down at the very end of the movement
(‘A pennant universal’), sounding literal
and bland (15’08).
The second movement
(‘On the Beach at Night, alone) is a
setting for baritone and chorus of Whitman’s
poem. Daniel does not conjure up the
tranquillity the text demands, needing
to relax more into the depth of this
music. More specifically, the sense
of wonder at the Universe and at the
great space of a unified Everything
(‘A great similitude interlocks all’,
states the text) is under-projected
(and is that an edit I hear at its choral
restatement, 6’32?). Maltman does his
considerable best, invoking an initial
sense of desolation in his bleached
tone but Daniel does not have the ‘greatness’
to do the music full justice.
If the third movement
(‘The Waves’) is agile, it could be
even more pointed from the chorus (who
are elsewhere generally excellent).
There is a touch of the routine - or
the safe? - about this, especially the
tricky staccato accents.
Elements of mystery
do permeate the finale (‘The Explorers’)
and there is much to impress here (try
Rodgers and Maltman in duet at ‘Bathe
me, O God, in thee’, 15’44). However
it does not, in the last analysis, supply
the broad message of hope Vaughan Williams
surely intended.
Naxos’s cover is remarkably
apt (a painting once attributed to Turner)
in its representation of a dark maritime
processional. Richard Whitehouse’s notes
are generally acceptable except for
one over-long and clumsy sentence (paragraph
2).
Colin Clarke
See also
review by John Philips
Joan Rodgers (soprano); Christopher Maltman
(baritone)