This is a generous and often intriguing programme of Gurney’s
songs. There are tried and trusted recital favourites but also
a fair number that are obscure even to enthusiasts of English
song. There is even ‘first recording’ status here;
neither
The bonnie Earl of Murray nor
The cherry trees has
been recorded before - and I have to say I don’t know of
a previous recording of
Fain would I change that note,
though it’s not marked as a premiere recording.
I suppose - except for one or two obvious examples - Gurney is
mostly sung by men, so this concentrated take by Susan Bickley
allows one to gauge how well the mezzo can circumnavigate Gurney’s
emotive highs and lows, how expressively she can colour-shade,
and how she responds to the more seismic moments enshrined in
the writing.
There is always room for interpretative latitude so a few of
my own personal observations can stand for the performances as
a whole. Her response to a well known setting such as
Ha'nacker
Mill I would characterise as clement, reserved and perhaps
lacking in intimacy. Or let’s take
By a bierside, one
of his ‘biggest’ settings. It suits her warm mezzo
very well, and she sings it with assurance, a keen ear as to
rhythm and textual meaning. Maybe I am being pernickety but I
find her vibrato toward the end a touch wearying. Burnside’s
piano postlude (before the singer’s repeated lines) is
nicely measured. She deals very well indeed with the Elizabethan
Songs. I was particularly taken by the way she catches the tripping
element, the underlying rhythmic spring, that Hopkinsesque quality
in
Under the greenwood tree. Sleep is possibly
his greatest song and Bickley brings a splendid legato to it,
even if - for my taste - the words are slightly underplayed.
I admire Bickley and Burnside’s performances. If I miss
something I suppose it’s a sense of intimacy. I feel it
especially in
All night under the moon where the Potton
Hall studio also lacks the kind of acoustic that could slightly
warm things up. It can be admirably clear in chamber recitals
but chilly sometimes too. Could
The Fiddler of Dooney be
saucier? But how clever to essay
The Scribe. Why don’t
more singers dig out this song with its ingratiating lyricism?
It’s unaccountably overlooked and the Bickley-Burnside
team do it proud.
Some final thoughts then. Bickley has the talent and vocal range
to surmount the varied challenges of this relatively large number
of songs. If I find her sometimes a little cool, that may not
be your view at all. Burnside is a decided asset, weighting chords
with acumen, attentive to Bickley’s breath demands, and
so on. I did find the recording a touch chilly. The texts are
available via Naxos online.
Jonathan Woolf
Susan Bickley (mezzo) 
