Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Op 74 (1965) [26:03]
Tit for Tat (1929-1931) [8:38]
Folk song arrangements:
The Plough Boy [1:43]
The foggy, foggy dew [2:02]
Tom Bowling [4:27]
O Waly, Waly [3:17]
Oliver Cromwell [0:43]
The Ash Grove [2:23]
The Salley Gardens [2:28]
There’s none to soothe [1:39]
Little Sir William [2:43]
Ca’ the yowes [4:10]
Roderick Williams (baritone); Iain Burnside (piano)
rec. 4-6 January 2011, Potton Hall, Suffolk, UK
NAXOS 8.572600 [60:45]
This disc couples a masterpiece from Britten’s maturity and songs written
in his youth. The latter were revived and gathered together as a set in his
later years. Britten wrote very little for baritone, but I do think it a pity
that rather than seek an interesting work by another composer to complement
these two works, it was decided to complete the disc with folk-songs. Beautiful
though these arrangements are, many collectors will have quite enough Oliver
Cromwells and Little Sir Williams on the shelves, thank you. They
are, however, beautifully sung here. There is a very brisk Plough Boy,
and Roderick Williams tones in his voice beautifully for the gentler numbers.
Ca’ the yowes, a minor masterpiece, is magnificently grand. Overall,
the delivery is simple, neither folk-song nor art-song, and refreshingly avoiding
the coy or arch in the likes of The foggy, foggy dew. No, Williams
presents them unadorned, and with a beautiful legato line, as a series of
lovely tunes with inventive and striking accompaniments. Others, some of whom
set them up as quasi-operatic scenes, do inject more life into some of the
songs, not always to their advantage.
Tit for Tat, a set of five short songs to poems by Walter de la Mare,
was first performed in 1969 by John Shirley-Quirk with the composer at the
piano. I have in my head the sound of Shirley-Quirk singing these songs, but
can’t for the life of me remember where or when it comes from. The songs
were written when Britten was in his teens, and he had only recently gathered
them together and, with minimal editing, prepared them for publication. They
are accomplished works that can, on the whole, be enjoyed without making allowances
for the composer’s age. There is not the psychological insight - neither
into the poems nor into the mind of the listener - that you find in the mature
composer’s vocal music. Nor is the piano part so developed. Listen however
to the second song, “Autumn”: everything that was to come is there
in embryonic form. It would be easy to exaggerate the claims of these songs,
but presented so cleanly and with such understanding as do Williams and his
superb pianist, Iain Burnside, they make just the effect the mature composer
surely intended.
Philip Lancaster’s booklet essay casts plenty of light on the programme.
Walter de la Mare’s poems are sadly not given, but the folk-song texts
do appear, as do the texts of the masterly Songs and Proverbs of William
Blake. This work was composed for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and is dedicated
to him. The dedication reads “For Dieter: the past and the future. It
is a proper, integrated song-cycle, but which is sung without a break. Poems
and proverbs alternate, creating a continuous text which was chosen and arranged
in order by Peter Pears, no doubt with input from the composer. Words and
music combine to create a cycle that maintains a single mood throughout its
length, one of melancholy observation. In his book Britten, Voice and Piano,
Stephen Johnson recounts how the relationship between Fischer-Dieskau and
Britten, though nourished by mutual admiration, was not an easy one. The sessions
for their Decca recording of December 1965 were by all accounts particularly
fraught, but this is hardly audible in the finished result, which is a performance
of extraordinary mastery. Fischer-Dieskau is magnificent, and the composer’s
piano playing is miraculous. Listen, for example, in the ppp quavers
that introduce A Poison Tree, how he manages to conceal the inconvenient
fact that a piano works by hammers striking on keys. This is the kind of piano
playing that prompted Gerald Moore, in his book Am I Too Loud?, to
proclaim Britten as “the world’s greatest living accompanist”.
Britten’s recorded legacy is essential for any admirer of his work,
but happily the era is now long gone when attempts by other performers to
stamp their own personality on the music seemed like an affront to the composer’s
memory. Iain Burnside is outstandingly fine on this disc. It seems almost
insulting to state that his playing is technically impeccable, but I do state
it, whilst adding that he is profoundly in tune with the music and with the
singer’s needs. Roderick Williams gives a performance of great vision,
beautifully sung, that will satisfy any listener who discovers the work from
this performance. In general, Fischer-Dieskau employs a wider range of vocal
colour that allows him, in The ChimneySweeper, for example, to play
the part of the oppressed child with remarkable vividness. Another example
would be at the line “And blights with plagues the marriage hearse”
in London, where Williams doesn’t really match Fischer-Dieskau’s
disillusioned bitterness. Williams is slower, too, the song hardly reflecting
the composer’s marking of “Very agitated”. If this gives
the impression that the reading is a pale one, the opposite is the case. There
is a suggestion of whimsy in Fischer-Dieskau’s performance of The
Fly that is absent in Williams’ reading, and Williams launches Ah!
Sun-flower with a superb crescendo barely observed by Fischer-Dieskau.
The end of the work, too, is very fine indeed from both artists, not quite
resigned, not quite hopeless.
William Hedley
Reviews of Britten recordings on Naxos
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An outstanding performance of a mature Britten masterpiece, coupled with juvenilia and folk-songs.