Songs Now : British Songs of the 21st Century
David POWER (b.1962)
Eight Evening Songs (2004-07) [12:03]
Tom ARMSTRONG
Opened Spaces (2007) [4:00]
David LANCASTER
Memory of Place (2010) [9:31]
Richard WHALLEY
Six Songs of Old Japanese Wisdom (2007) [10:31]
Peter REYNOLDS (b.1958)
Adieu to All Alluring Toys (2011) [4:32]
Steve CROWTHER
Songs for Don (2007) [15:41]
William Rhys MEEK (b.1963)
Winter is a Slow Death Waiting (2010) [3:46]
Michael PARKIN
Three Songs (2001-09) [7:43]
Paul Carey Jones (baritone)
Ian Ryan (piano)
rec. National Centre for Early Music, York, 2011. DDD
MERIDIAN CDE 84614 [67:50]
If this album of contemporary songs by British composers does indeed reflect
21st century Britain, as the title promises, then Britain must be a rather
sombre, serious place, with little warmth or contentment. 'Winter is a slow
death waiting', as one of the songs has it.
One of the featured composers, David Power, provides introductory notes, in
which he offers the following contextualisation: "In recent decades, the influence
of the European avant-garde has receded, the influence of rock music has become
ever stronger and British composers seem to have become more at ease with
stylistic diversity as well as with their own national musical heritage."
There are some very big assumptions in that statement, but Power - whose biographical
note says that his "initial interest was rock music but the electronic instrumentals
on David Bowie's album Low prompted a change in direction" - is more
controversial when he reports an informal audience vote at a recent festival
in England indicating the public's preference for the kind of new song featured
here over the established masterpieces of Britten, Quilter, Finzi, Bridge
and Butterworth.
If that is the case, sales of this CD should do very well, but given the predominantly
conservative nature of 'classical' audiences, it does seem rather unlikely.
The texts set here are all contemporary in character, chiefly elliptic or
cryptic, with minimum or obscure prosody. Many range from the slightly pretentious
to the very pretentious, and beyond that to the pointless. An example of the
former is The Waiting by Jane MacNamee: "The waiting/ the waiting/
spilled into me/ The world is a stranger without you." (The end). The second
verse of Instinct, a translated haiku by Kobayashi Issa, gives an example
of pointless: "lightning flash -/ not giving a damn/ the toad's face". The
best poetry is to be found in the three more traditional-themed texts - ironically
anonymous - of Peter Reynolds' Adieu to All Alluring Toys, and in the
eight by Don Walls set by Steve Crowther in Songs for Don, which are
modern/urban but easily comprehensible. One of them, incidentally - 'Junkie'
- is a rather graphic portrayal of a drug addict's lot, and does include the
F-word.
However bad or good, in all cases the poems are improved by their settings,
which, though often atonal and modernistically jerky, are full of atmosphere,
adventure and bite from beginning to end. All these composers, on this admittedly
scant evidence, seem to have something to say to 21st century audiences -
provided they can find them!
Cardiff-born baritone Paul Carey Jones has a fine, powerful voice. He deals
with the many technical and expressive difficulties posed by these composers
very well, on the whole - as for example in the opening of David Lancaster's
Memory of Place. His enunciation is impressively lucid, aided in no
small part by some very thoughtfully written scores. His vowels are inevitably
coloured Welsh, but not to any distracting degree. His Rs are nearly always
heavily rolled, which comes across as something of an affectation after a
while. He has also done his homework: in Reynolds' Adieu, he does not
rhyme 'saith' (the archaic third person singular present of say) with 'faith',
which is for the eyes only, and elsewhere he correctly pronounces the Austrian
city Graz. Ian Ryan, like Jones making his debut recording for Meridian, follows
the latter's lead attentively and cogently in what is at times rather unforgiving
music.
Sound quality is very good, as it ought to be from a label who, in their own
words, "continue to astound listeners and artists with our stylish and captivating
recordings using our revered 'natural sound' technique."
Those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder might do well to avoid this
disc, but in other respects this is a decent product. Waverers can download
the booklet for free from Meridian's website here.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
If this album does indeed reflect 21st century Britain then it must be a rather
sombre, serious place, with little warmth or contentment.
see also review by Rob Barnett