Wonderful to see a
second disc of English song from Bryn
Terfel, again on the Deutsche Grammophon
label. This compilation contains some
lovely songs, with the composers featured
ranging from Stanford and Parry to Warlock
and Britten. As with his first disc
of RVW, Finzi, Ireland and Butterworth
it focuses on the early twentieth century
- the great renaissance period of English
music. There is a good mixture of the
familiar (Quilter, Warlock, Vaughan
Williams) and the less-well-known (Frederick
Keel, Dunhill and Michael Head, and
Somervell’s Shropshire Lad) rather
than the Butterworth version, or Vaughan
Williams’ Housman cycle On Wenlock
Edge, exquisite though they are!).
There are some nice touches in Terfel’s
singing, and he is able to bring a song
vividly to life. Yet he has a great
deal to live up to with those others
singers who have devoted themselves
to a greater extent to English solo
song. He does not always manage to rival
their easy way with this music. I find
a few other small matters of concern
regarding his essays into this repertoire,
which just slightly spoil an otherwise
superb disc.
The collection opens
with that masterful craftsman of song,
Roger Quilter, with his Three Shakespeare
Songs. What strikes one immediately
is that Terfel seems very concerned
with the words and enunciation – more
so, apparently, than with the meaning
of the song. This results in beautifully
pronounced crystal clarity, but at the
expense of emotion. Another rather strange
characteristic in these songs is how
he seems to pull back on the words rather
than propelling the song along and letting
the words flow naturally. This creates
a rather stilted effect, almost jerky
in O Mistress Mine, with rather
unmusically forced rhythms and words
(listen to the word "co-ffin"
in Come away Death). I also found
the singing slightly breathy, and prefer
the smooth, unlaboured, instinctive
radiant beauty and natural fluidity
of Anthony Rolfe Johnson’s version (Hyperion
– Songs by Roger Quilter). Yet
Terfel brings a beautiful tone, appealingly
dulcet for example, in the line "But
what is love" (O Mistress Mine),
and in that one song alone shows an
admirable ability to range from bold
and loud to sweet, gentle and light.
He also gives a brilliantly brash and
blustery performance of Blow blow,
thou Winter Wind.
On to Gurney’s Sleep,
where there are some pleasing touches,
such as his well-timed vibrato on "bereaving".
Yet on the whole I felt that this song
was not agonised or tortured enough,
and Terfel is unable to compete with
the tormented Luxon on Chandos or Agnew
on Hyperion, whose tormented inflexions
he lacks. I also find his words rather
too marked and plodding, although he
compares favourably with Bostridge on
the EMI Classics English Songbook
disc and with Martyn Hill on Hyperion’
s War’s Embers disc.
The slightly stilted
wording continues – in Vaughan Williams’
Silent Noon, we find Terfel creating
a good atmosphere but holding back on
the second syllables of words with an
odd hesitation, and similarly, in Linden
Lea we get the halted "Sin-ging",
for example. The Vaughan Williams songs
bring to light another aspect that I
personally find extremely off-putting
(though others may not), and that it
is the hard "a"s. Noticeable
in Silent Noon ("pasture",
"glass", "clasp"),
they are far more glaring here, particularly
in "master" and "faster".
These come again and again throughout
the rest of the disc – most notably
in "fast" in Quilter’s Weep
you no more and in Britten’s The
Foggy, Foggy Dew, in "answer"
and "after" in Somervell’s
In summertime on Bredon, and
in "passed" and "grass"
in The Sally Gardens. After some
time this gets deeply irritating, and
mars what would otherwise be very attractive
singing.
Otherwise, this is
a characterful performance of Linden
Lea. Terfel takes it quite fast
(half a minute faster than Luxon, for
example), and this completely changes
the character of the song, rendering
it lively and almost merry rather than
lyrical and hauntingly beautiful. I
would far prefer the devastating charm
of a more sensitive slower pace and
more melancholic air, but this is a
valid and interesting interpretation.
Other songs on the
disc cannot be faulted – the Keel Three
Salt-Water Ballads are all extremely
well done, in a brilliant local accent,
and the other three Quilter songs are
well-performed, with great delicacy
in Now sleeps the Crimson Petal,
and an alluringly dreamy and tender
Weep you no more – one of the
best tracks on this disc. Somervell’s
A Shropshire Lad is also given
a very good performance, although it
does not quite reach the heights of
compelling sensitivity and spirited
evocation that David Wilson-Johnson
and David Owen Norris so masterfully
and effortlessly attain.
Yet Terfel’ s When
I was one and twenty is excellent
(he has precisely the right kind of
voice for this song), and he is perfectly
swash-buckling in The street sounds
to the soldiers tread.
The Michael Head songs
are performed with a lovely dark tone,
and the only problem here is an almost
imperceptible background noise in the
piano introduction in the (dare I say
it, slightly dreary) The Lord’s Prayer.
Three of Britten’s
folksong arrangements ensue – The
Sally Gardens, in which I missed
the wistfulness of Langridge accompanied
by Graham Johnson (Collins Classics),
Robert Tear on EMI Classics, or even
Bostridge on Virgin Classics. Terfel
takes the song slightly too fast, thus
losing the air of reverie and reflection,
yet he makes up for it with lovely little
inflexions and touches, such as a little
whining sigh on last "And now am
full". I also found Oliver Cromwell
falling slightly behind its competitors.
Slightly slower than Tear, it does not
come across as quite jokey enough –
it is taken too seriously and needs
a lighter, more nonchalant (and possibly
slightly more raucous) treatment. The
Foggy Foggy Dew is probably the
song on this disc that Terfel imbues
with the greatest amount of character
– he makes the song really quite funny,
but slightly overdoes it. The best version
of this I have ever heard was Christopher
Maltman singing it live, in an understated
but still brilliantly characterised
version, which made clear to all the
meaning of the song without making a
song and dance about it as Terfel does
here. Terfel starts with a nice emphasis
on first "Woo-ed", followed
by a very nice "Damn near died",
where he slows right down, almost to
a stop. Yet when we get to his squeaking
"Just to keep", and his sharp
intentional intake of breath after "live
with my son", we might well wonder
whether he isn’t going just a little
over the top!
Warlock’s Captain
Stratton’s Fancy is suitably rumbustious,
and I like Terfel’s drunken slur on
"roll beneath the bench".
He also captures the delicacy of the
lily and rose well, but I miss the parsimonious
inflexions of the unbeatable Maltman
(Collins Classics) on "Some that’s
good and godly ones". Otherwise,
Terfel’s version is excellent, and compares
favourably to Robert Lloyd’s 1978 recording
(EMI Classics).
Terfel proves that
he can do dreamy, lyrical and gentle
songs effectively as well as the rowdier
numbers, in Dunhill’s Ye Cloths of
Heaven, and brings the disc to an
outstanding conclusion with two Lear
settings of Stanford – the brilliant,
brilliant The Aquiline Snub,
and the Compleat Virtuoso, both
of which he performs fantastically.
All in all, I would
recommend this disc to all lovers of
English song, although I would advise
getting hold of alternate versions of
some of the songs (John Mark Ainsley’s
Quilter, Pear’s Britten, Robert Tear’s
Vaughan Williams, Paul Agnew’s Gurney,
David Wilson Johnson and Norris’s Somervell
and Maltman’s Warlock) if one hasn’t
already acquired them. The singing here
is excellent, Terfel has a gorgeous
rich, deep tone, and Malcolm Martineau
is (unsurprisingly, given his experience
in English song!) a faultless accompanist,
and anyone who promotes English song
is a top chap in my books!
Em Marshall
Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone), Malcolm Martineau
(piano) 
