Chandos continue their praiseworthy series of mid-price Hickox reissues with
one
of the best discs he ever made for them. It is particularly valuable for the
première
recording of Gerald Finzi’s
Requiem da camera - and there have
been
no recordings since - but that is not its only claim on the attention.
It has to be admitted however that the Finzi’s early
Requiem da camera is not a work of overpowering genius like his later
choral
Intimations of Immortality or
In terra pax, both of
which also had to wait many years to gain full appreciation from audiences.
He was still at this time finding his feet as a composer, and the opening
prelude in particular sounds more like an imitation of the English pastoral
style than the real thing itself - the melodic lines simply don’t have
the sustained emotional profile that Finzi would afterwards achieve with
such apparently effortless ease. Nevertheless it is a beautiful piece,
setting words by John Masefield, Thomas Hardy and Wilfrid Gibson with all
the feeling and compassion that this superlative word-setter commands. Any
lover of Finzi will have to have this recording in their collection. The
work was left unfinished, and Philip Thomas has furnished an orchestration
of Hardy’s
Only a man harrowing clods which has exactly the
right feel for Finzi’s style - not incidentally at all like the music
Thomas (himself a composer) was writing at the time, and played to me at a
number of sessions at his flat. It is helped by a marvellously sympathetic
performance from Hickox which brings out the many incidental glories of the
score, not least in the aforementioned prelude. Stephen Varcoe delivers the
Hardy setting with tenderness and understanding. The chorus are excellent
although rather too backwardly placed in the balance for their words to be
clear. As I say, this recording is an absolute must.
Britten’s
Cantata misericordium was written to
celebrate the centenary of the Red Cross. It’s a setting in Latin of
the parable of the Good Samaritan which is in places almost operatic in its
style, including as it does orchestral interludes to represent the passage
of time. Apart from the initial recording by Britten himself with Peter
Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the solo roles - following on from
their appearance in the première of the
War Requiem a year
earlier - this is the only recording of the work in the catalogues. The two
soloists in this performance, John Mark Ainsley and Stephen Varcoe,
don’t bring the same sense of dramatic involvement to the work that
was contrived by their two distinguished predecessors. However, the very
fact that their voices are less idiosyncratically individual lends the music
a more contemplative feel without sacrificing the passionate sense of
involvement with the words. The piece, with its Latin text, lacks the
overwhelming emotional appeal of the settings of Wilfred Owen in the
War
Requiem, but the music comes identifiably from the same period of
Britten’s career. The opening words of the Samaritan, delivered by
Ainsley more steadily than Pears could contrive at this stage of his career,
are beautiful indeed.
The two other Britten works, both for unaccompanied chorus, were
never recorded by Britten himself although both have rightly attracted the
attention of cathedral choirs since they were published after his death.
Both inhabit the same world as the
Hymn to St Cecilia and indeed the
words for the
Chorale after an old French carol are also by W H
Auden. The choir beautifully convey the saturated textures of the music.
The two Holst psalm settings are glorious little masterpieces, and
here they are given a performance without rival in the catalogues. Imogen
Holst recorded
Psalm 86 many years ago, and her recording is
available in a number of couplings from EMI; but she did not record the
equally marvellous
Psalm 148, and despite the singing of Ian
Partridge the sound of the chorus is not well blended. The recording of both
pieces by Hilary Davan Wetton, which adopted a very ecclesiastical ambience,
appears to be no longer available; that by Queen’s College Choir uses
organ accompaniment, which robs us of Holst’s beautifully written
string lines. Hickox here gives us the full treatment, and John Mark Ainsley
yields nothing to Ian Partridge in the sheer beauty of his singing. Alison
Barlow is much better in the brief soprano solo than Imogen Holst’s
unnamed (and very uncontrolled) singer. These two Holst settings would alone
be worth the price of this record; the other works make it irresistible.
I bought the original CD when it originally was issued in 1991, and
I have played it many times since. The new reissue comes complete with full
texts and translations as well as the original booklet notes - which simply
goes to show that reissues of earlier material can be properly presented,
unlike the policy of so many others. If any lover of the music of English
twentieth century composers does not have this disc in their collection,
they should take steps to rectify the omission immediately.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Britten discography & review
index
Finzi discography & review
index
