Heracleitus
Charles Daniels (tenor)
Bridge String Quartet
Michael Dussek (piano)
rec. Church of St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road, Oxford on 15,16 January 2015 (Tracks 1-20; 22-24); St George’s Church, Chesterton on 8,9 May 2014 (Track 21)
EM RECORDS EMRCD036 [74:57]
This very interesting disc celebrates the talents of three
of England’s greatest song-writer composers of the first quarter
of the last century, two of whom (Butterworth and Gurney) were to remain
inextricably linked to the conflict of the First World War—although
the Houseman poems, for the settings of which they are, perhaps, most
celebrated, were actually written in the shadow of the Boer Wars. Butterworth,
who was decorated for conspicuous bravery, died on the Somme in 1916.
Gurney, who was gassed in the Passchendaele offensive, was invalided
home and resumed his musical studies and composing career but his experiences
and fragile health, combined with an underlying bi-polar illness and
exacerbated by the pressure of his creativity, tragically combined to
burn out his sanity and he spent the last eleven years of his life committed
to an asylum. Warlock (the pseudonym of Philip Heseltine) sought and
achieved exemption from military service so it is somewhat ironic that
his short life should have been ended by gas poisoning, although this
seems most likely to have been at his own hand.
With tracks 1-7 we start with Gurney’s “Ludlow and Teme”,
a setting of seven of Houseman’s poems from the sixty-three of
“A Shropshire Lad”. There have been several recordings of
this cycle, including offerings from Adrian Thompson on Hyperion (recorded
in 1989, but released in 2004), James Gilchrist on Linn (2007) and Andrew
Kennedy on Signum (2008). An earlier Hyperion recording by Martyn Hill
appears to have been supplanted by the Thompson recording. Some may
disagree but, based on a quick survey of recorded examples and judging
by earlier reviews it seems to me that, whilst there is little to choose
between Gilchrist and Kennedy, Thompson’s recording is probably
the one to beat so I use that as a reference.
Daniels was new to me. As one might expect both he and Thompson have
very fine voices, well suited to this repertoire. Switching between
them, the first impression I have is that the two voices are surprisingly
similar, not unlike darker versions of Ian Bostridge, and differences
are relatively minor. Although Daniels is the younger man, Thompson’s
recording was made twenty-seven years ago so his sounds slightly the
younger and more refulgent voice. If pushed I would say that Thompson’s
less precise intonation sometimes brings to mind aspects of the voice
of Peter Pears whereas Daniels’ more focused vibrato and occasional
slight reediness hints at John McCormack, but these are fleeting impressions.
In the individual songs I slightly prefer the slower tempo adopted by
Thompson in the first song but the lovely viola solo is captured beautifully
on the Daniels recording. In the second song Thompson is dreamier but
Daniels’ accompaniment is more characterful, and his accompaniment
is also more interesting in the third song. In songs four and five Daniels
is rather more deliberate and I prefer Thompson whereas, in song six
(with almost the same timing) Daniels’ account seems to stride
along better. In the final song Daniels’ relatively brisk account
is fine but I marginally prefer Thompson. Honours are pretty even then
and I would be very happy with either.
Tracks 8-11 are four of Butterworth’s settings for tenor and piano.
Here the only comparable accounts I have been able to find are Anthony
Rolfe-Johnson on Hyperion (with Graham Johnson’s piano accompaniment)
for the first three songs and Mark Stone on Stone Records (with Stephen
Barlow accompanying). The sheer beauty of Rolfe-Johnson’s voice
at its golden best takes the honours here. Incidentally, note that Song/Track
5 of the EM disc is Gurney’s setting of “On the idle hill
of summer” and Track 10 gives us the opportunity to compare Butterworth’s
setting of the same poem, where Daniels’ account strikes me as
almost as fine as Rolfe-Johnson’s. For the last song I feel that,
good though he is, Stone is outclassed by Daniels.
Tracks 12-16 give us the world premiere recording of Butterworth’s
only surviving chamber work—at least in the form he left it. The
Suite for String Quartet apparently dates from around 1910 and it was
only resurrected as recently as 2001. The booklet notes do not offer
any suggestions as to what prompted its composition other than that
the composer was immersed in the folk-song revival at the time and may
have been influenced by Debussy (whose own quartet dates from 1893).
Of course Butterworth was a friend of Vaughan Williams, who was also
engaged in collecting folk songs, but VW’s own early foray into
the string quartet medium (1898) was probably not the spur to the Butterworth
work and bears it no particular similarities. The work is in five movements,
although the style of the very brief Scherzando second movement
suggests that it might have been intended purely as an introduction
to the third movement Allegro. Of all the movements the first
probably shares most characteristics with the better-known works of
Butterworth, including the most obvious folk-song influences. This first
movement was recently broadcast by the Carducci Quartet but the complete
work has also been made available—albeit in an arrangement for
string orchestra by Kriss Russman—and this has also been broadcast
and recorded (for Naxos/BIS).
The Bridge Quartet give us a splendid performance of the complete Suite
and it is good to hear it in its original form. That said Russmann’s
arrangement also works very well. By one of those amazing coincidences
I bumped into Russmann’s wife at a party, soon after the Naxos/BIS
CD was released, and we briefly discussed the work but I neglected to
ask her why Russmann had felt the need to make the arrangement. At any
rate, in his fine recording, the work sounds as if it could have been
intended for a larger group so, perhaps, that answers the question.
Tracks 17 and 18 are given over to “Heracleitus”, the Warlock
song of 1917 (based on the poem by W. J. Cory) that gives the disc its
title, followed by the very brief “Sweet Content” of 1919
(which is based on the poem by Thomas Dekker). The booklet makes the
point that Warlock is known to have arranged a number of his songs for
voice and string quartet, with the quartet parts closely following the
piano versions. Most of these arrangements have been tracked down but
three, including those of the present two songs, remained elusive so
reconstructions were made by John Mitchell (who provides the relevant
notes) “safe in the knowledge the songs in this format would have
met with the composer’s approval”. In this format the recordings
can justly claim to be world premieres although “Heracleitus”
has appeared on disc before (on a Dunelm/Diversions CD performed by
Paul Martyn-West accompanied by Nigel Foster that was appreciatively
reviewed
by Em Marshall for MWI and “Sweet Content” appeared on a
very well-received Helios disc performed by John Mark-Ainsley accompanied
by Roger Vignoles. “Heracleitus” is a rather downbeat song
and Daniels captures its essence well with, to my ear, a rather more
appropriate voice than that of Martyn-West. On the other hand Daniels’
brisk performance of “Sweet Content” gives rise to slight
articulation problems in the cluttered Elizabethan “hey nonny-nonnys”
and I prefer Mark-Ainsley’s slower account.
Back to Butterworth for tracks 19 and 20. “Fill a glass with golden
wine” and “On the way to Kew” (both based on poems
by W. E. Henley) here have string quartet accompaniment. These are lovely
performances and, again, I feel that Daniels’ voice is to be preferred
to that of Mark Stone (who only has piano accompaniment).
Little remains of Gurney’s prolific output of chamber music. After
the violin sonata of 1918/19 he composed a rhapsodic string quartet
in A (unpublished) which has not yet been recorded (although a YouTube
video of a public performance of it may be available). He wrote a ‘cello
sonata soon afterwards’, probably in 1921. Then, in a two year
burst of intense creativity, prior to his incarceration in 1926, he
is known to have written a further twenty or so string quartets and
other chamber works. Following Gurney’s death in 1937 Gerald Finzi
made a quick survey of all the manuscripts and, on the head of the page
on which they were catalogued, he noted: “Everything on this page
is useless”. Sadly, most, if not all, of these works are now missing,
presumed destroyed, with the exception of a quartet in D Minor from
1924, for which copies of the parts have survived, albeit heavily annotated
by Gurney. The full quartet is, apparently, now under reconstruction
by Philip Lancaster and Track 21 provides us with an advance glimpse
of the work in the form of this Adagio movement, a touchingly beautiful,
uneasy and intense piece, here given a lovely and poignant world premiere
performance. As Lancaster’s note says, “This movement……makes
one wonder at what we have lost.”
The final three tracks on the disc are devoted to three songs by Gurney
with piano accompaniment: “The Cloths of Heaven”, “Severn
Meadows” and “By a Bierside”. Paul Agnew’s fine
performances of these songs on Hyperion constitute the principal rival
versions but, by and large, Daniels matches Agnew’s sensitivity
and the performances on the present disc are very acceptable.
The recording is generally fine and well-balanced. At high volumes I
was a little concerned that the acoustic around Daniels’ voice
was slightly constricted (less open than one or two of the Hyperion
recordings, for example) and that the voice had a slightly hard edge.
At normal listening volume this was, however, not really a problem.
The booklet is a highly informative, multi-author collaborative affair
and provides useful texts of all the songs.
Bob Stevenson
Contents
Peter WARLOCK (1984-1930)
Heracleitus [3:21]
Sweet content [1:18]
George BUTTERWORTH (1885-1916)
Suite for string quartet (1910) [18:23]
When the lad for longing sighs [1:41]
Bredon Hill [4:47]
On the idle hill of summer [3:03]
With rue my heart is laden [1:38]
Fill a glass with golden wine [1:51]
On the way to Kew [3:34]
Ivor GURNEY (1890-1937)
Ludlow and Teme, seven songs for tenor, string quartet and piano (1919)
[18:22]
Adagio (from String Quartet in D Minor) [7:39]
The Cloths of Heaven [3:08]
Severn Meadows [1:53]
By a Bierside [4:19]
