If you look at the contents of this recital
and see the names of such composers as Cole Porter, Ivor Novello
and Noël Coward you might be forgiven for thinking that this CD
is the vocal equivalent of a collection of Beecham ‘lollipops’.
However, such is not the case. To be sure, there is some lighter
material here – quite a bit of it, in fact – but it’s interwoven
with more serious fare, including several novelties. Also, and
this is a key point, Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson treat every
piece, even such a “lightweight” as the music hall spoof by Lord
Berners, with equal care and fastidious musicianship. In fact,
what this disc is all about, Graham Johnson tells us, is the sheer
pleasure of performing songs in English.
There are some surprises on the way. We hear the only song that
Poulenc composed to an English text – lines from
The Merchant
of Venice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before but it’s
a dreamy delight. The link with Britten, whose setting of the
same lines is placed next, is that both of these settings were
written at the request of Marion Countess of Harewood. Though
the same text is set the two songs could hardly be more different.
Britten’s is much pithier, almost spiky. My own preference – and
it’s a strong one - is for Poulenc’s response to Shakespeare.
Poulenc is not the only French composer who makes a “surprise”
entry in this programme of songs in English. I was intrigued to
see a setting by Gounod of Shelley’s poem,
Love’s Philosophy.
In fact, Graham Johnson tells us that he wrote some seventy songs
in English while in self-imposed exile in London in 1870, but
he promptly adapted them all to different texts in his native
tongue on his return home!
The fountain mingles with the river
is a good song. I was just as unaware of the existence of even
one English song by Saint-Saëns – are there any more, I wonder?
– and the lilting setting included here has no little charm. The
Hahn song is one of five settings by him of words by Robert Louis
Stevenson. I suspect these rarities have been unearthed by Graham
Johnson: how
does one man have such an encyclopaedic knowledge
of the art song repertoire and of its more
recherché corners?
Naturally, there are several songs by English composers. New to
me was Mervyn Horder’s setting of
Under the greenwood tree
– and how unusual to hear these lines set to a tango rhythm! Another
song I’d not heard before was Antony Hopkins’
A melancholy
song. Perhaps best known for his writings about music and
his long-running radio series,
Talking about Music, Hopkins
the composer is represented here by an extremely brief song. It’s
bright and deft, quite belying the title. Incidentally, though
Ms Lott’s diction is impeccable throughout, this was one of the
numbers in which I regretted the lack of texts in the booklet.
There’s also an entry from Sir Arthur Bliss, whose songs are too
little known. As Graham Johnson comments, his
The return from
town is “music as simple as a folksong”. It’s expertly rendered
here. However, I was intrigued to find that the interpretation
is markedly different to that by Geraldine McGreevy and Kathron
Sturrock on the Hyperion set of the complete songs of Bliss (
review).
There the song is delivered at a much faster tempo and is dispatched
in a mere 1:07. On this present disc Lott and Johnson take 2:05
and the song is radically different as a result.
Lighter songs from both sides of the Atlantic account for quite
a lot of the programme. The three songs by Noël Coward are done
with real feeling – I particularly enjoyed
If love were all
– and Lott is a delightful interpreter of Cole Porter. She’s the
epitome of a coolly correct maidservant in
Miss Otis regrets
and delivers the devilishly clever double entendres of
The
physician with relish.
I mentioned earlier the care and skill which has gone into these
performances. The best illustration of this, perhaps, is Flanders
and Swann’s hilarious
A word on my ear. A friend of mine,
a very good soprano, has this song in her repertoire and, having
heard her rehearse and perform it several times, I know how musically
taxing it is both for the singer and for the poor pianist. It
takes top quality musicianship to be able to pull this song off
at all, let alone to make it sound as funny as it does here.
This is a peach of a disc and it entertained me greatly. Anyone
who has seen Dame Felicity in recital will know what an engaging
singer she is. She has the gift of being able to sound just as
engaging through loudspeakers and she has the perfect partner
in Graham Johnson.
Graham Johnson’s notes are succinct but characteristically interesting
and entertaining. However, it’s a pity someone didn’t proof read
them a bit more carefully for there are a surprising number of
typographical errors. As I mentioned earlier, no texts are supplied.
Despite the clarity of Ms Lott’s singing I think that’s a pity.
And from where does the title of the programme come? Dame Felicity
is widely known in the profession as “Flott”. Here, she and Graham
Johnson make a very slight alteration to the text of a Jerome
Kern song, which actually rhymes better with the text. It’s a
nice little touch.
This is a captivating disc in which charm and sophistication are
blended in equal measure. It’s one of the most enjoyable recital
discs I’ve heard for a long time.
John Quinn
Full track listing:
Geoffrey BUSH (1920-1998) It was a lover and his lass
[1:52]
Francis POULENC (1899-1963) Fancy [1:48]
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976) Fancie [0:58]
Mervyn HORDER (1910-1997) Under the greenwood tree [1:37]
Charles GOUNOD (1818–1893) The fountain mingles with
the river [1:37]
Reynaldo HAHN (1875-1947) The swing [1:44]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) Cherry Tree Farm [2:23]
Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941) O that it were so [2:13]
Antony HOPKINS (b. 1921) A melancholy song [0:54]
Noël COWARD (1899-1973) If love were all [5:44]
Jerome KERN (1885-1945) You can’t make love by wireless
[3:13]
Madeleine DRING (1923-1977) Song of a nightclub proprietress
[2:49]
Samuel BARBER (1910-1981) Solitary hotel [2:35]
Irving BERLIN (1899-1989) What’ll I do [3:32]
Cole PORTER (1891-1964) Miss Otis regrets [2:48]
John MUSTO (b. 1954) Litany [3:50]
George WARE (1829-1895) The Boy in the gallery [2:42]
Noël COWARD Mad about the boy [4:55]
Sir Arthur BLISS (1891-1975) The return from town [2:05]
Cole PORTER The physician [4:09]
Lord BERNERS (1883-1950) Come on Algernon [3:04]
Michael FLANDERS (1922-1975) and Donald SWANN (1923–1904)
A word on my ear [4:35]
Irving BERLIN I love a piano [3:22]
Jerome KERN Call me Flo’(tt) [1:34]
Ivor NOVELLO (1893-1951) Bees are buzzin’ [3:13]
Herman HUPFELD (1894-1951) Let’s put out the lights [2:14]
Noël COWARD The party’s over [1:40]
Dame Felicity Lott (soprano); Graham Johnson (piano) 
