English Song Collection
rec. 1995-2014
NAXOS 8.502507 [25 CDs: 28 hrs]
Naxos here offers many of the fine issues in its English song catalogue, an important and popular genre within the English Musical Renaissance, the period from the last decade of the 19th century on through three quarters of the last century. Or put another way from the emergence of Elgar to the death of Britten. There is no room for Elgar here, though he wrote seventy or so songs – yet he is never seen as a major songwriter and if his songs disappeared his high reputation would be unchanged. Britten by contrast is one of the great song composers, and in five languages, and he dominates this collection with seven of the twenty-five discs. So is there a coherence to the contents of this “English Song Collection” beyond what Naxos happens to have in its catalogue?
The core of the collection is that covered in Trevor Hold’s book “Parry to Finzi: Twenty English Song Composers”, covering the era he defines as the “Age of English Romantic Song”. That is well represented here by at least one CD for composers who also merit a chapter in Hold’s book: Somervell (b.1863), Vaughan Williams, Holst, Quilter, Ireland, Butterworth, Gurney, Warlock and Finzi (d.1956). Although Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Delius, Bridge, Bax, Moeran and a few others in Hold’s survey are not here, it could be argued they are less essential to the core of what he calls the “Romantic English Song” than those whom Naxos does include.
The collection is not confined to that repertoire however, but includes more modern figures, such as Britten (d. 1976), Alwyn (d.1985), and Walton (d.1983), and two who are still alive and very active in the genre, Ian Venables (b.1955) and Jonathan Dove (b.1959). The oldest composer here is the sole woman, Liza Lehmann (1862-1918). Her grandson was Stuart Bedford, a close Britten associate who conducted the premiere of Death in Venice, who died recently, and who accompanies his grandmother’s songs on the CD.
The collection is dominated by three composers who have more than one CD. There are Britten’s seven, while Finzi has three, and Vaughan Williams has two, which no song lover will complain about. But that means nearly half the collection is given over to those three figures. There is no mixed recital, so no composers share a disc, which means we feel some absences. A mixed recital could have made room for such as W. Denis Browne (1888-1915), who had little time to write many songs before his death in the Great War, but whose ecstatic ‘To Gratiana, dancing and singing’ would make many a shortlist of England’s finest examples (and would top my own). So too would Herbert Howells’ songs ‘King David’ and ‘Come sing and dance’ – like Browne’s those are also songs partly about singing. Howells like Browne is lauded in Hold’s book, but absent here. But fine accounts of those two Howells songs can be found on Sarah Connolly and Malcolm Martineau’s recital “My true love hath my heart” (Chandos 2011) and the Browne song is beautifully done on Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake’s “The English Songbook” (EMI 1999) – as well as on several other discs.
Still let me not review what is not in the collection, since so much is here that is central to the genre, and it is all almost uniformly well done, especially the aforementioned trio of great song composers whose work taken together occupies twelve of these twenty-five discs. The most comprehensive is the Britten, with all the folksongs taken over wholesale from the Collins Classics issue of 1995. The dominance of English (and other) folksongs in this collection (Quilter’s are also given complete on his disc) makes some sense, since the folk song is at the root of many of the art songs in this era. Felicity Lott and Philip Langridge, accompanied by Graham Johnson, are as good as any before or since in these Britten pieces. Langridge (with Steuart Bedford) also performs the five Canticles and the three most essential Britten tenor and piano cycles based on Donne, Michelangelo and Hardy (Winter Words), again reissues from Collins Classics in 1996, and long favoured by Britten lovers allergic to the voice of Peter Pears.
Other recitals here rescued from that fine Collins Classics “English Song Series” include those of Holst (with Langridge, Susan Gritton and Christopher Maltman), Vaughan Williams (the disc with ‘On Wenlock Edge’ with Anthony Rolfe Johnson), Roger Quilter (Rolfe Johnson and Lisa Milne), and Warlock (Adrian Thompson, Maltman again). These Collins originals are just the ones in my own collection, so there might might be others, as Naxos has not listed such origins in its material (though it did with the individual issues). We owe Naxos quite some gratitude for keeping this fine Collins series available, and letting us hear the very best artists in this repertoire going back to the 1990’s.
With the second of the Vaughan Williams discs (including ‘Songs of Travel’) we have Naxos’s own more recent recording with Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside, almost peerless among current performers of RVW and other English song composers. The three discs of song cycles by RVW’s friend and protégé, Finzi, Williams and Burnside do the honours once more for two of the discs, while tenor John Mark Ainsley also sings superbly on the disc with the Hardy cycles ‘A Young Man's Exhortation’, ‘Till Earth Outwears’, and ‘Oh Fair to See’. In fact for Britten, Finzi and Vaughan Williams this Naxos collection will serve to provide fine accounts of almost all the essential piano and voice (or guitar or harp) works, without looking further afield for additions. With Ivor Gurney this is more difficult since there are over two hundred and fifty songs in manuscript, so many are rarely heard. But the selection here by Susan Bickley is a satisfying one, with several favourites and a world premiere in the traditional Scots ‘Bonnie Earl of Moray’.
Also with Butterworth, Holst and Walton, the main works at least are all there. The Butterworth ‘Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad’ is among the best loved and most recorded song cycles in this repertoire, but I know few that are as satisfying as Roderick Williams, so much admired in this repertoire. In the case of Walton, there are some sung ‘Façade’ numbers, for which there are spoken versions in ‘Façade’ proper. The two main Walton items, ‘Anon in Love’ and ‘A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table’, were later given an orchestral accompaniment, rather confirming that Walton’s genius is still best heard not in recital room or opera house, but in the concert hall. ‘Anon in Love’, commissioned by Peter Pears, is so tailored to his voice and Britten’s use of it, that Martyn Hill is practically required to give a Pears impersonation, and so is not heard at his best, though he is fine elsewhere. The inclusion of the CDs of Dove and Venables shows that this glorious tradition continues in today’s English composers.
There is enough here that is less well-known, assuming many collectors will have the main works of, say, Butterworth, Finzi, and Vaughan Williams, will know some of the Britten, and perhaps a few Gurney, Quilter and Warlock pieces. Even that collector will grow their knowledge and pleasure through acquiring this collection. The more dedicated English song lover might have much more of this repertoire, and at least some of it in these performances (if you are unsure, the Naxos website for this issue shows exactly what is on each disc and who is performing it). The singers and their accompanists are listed below, a veritable hall of fame of English song performance over recent decades. The sound is very consistent too, with clarity, intimacy and atmosphere in just proportions.
A superb collection then, offering a wide ranging survey in an economical form, as the twenty-five CDs cost about £3-£4 per disc depending on the source. The discs are in cardboard sleeves with English pastoral cover photos, and the track listings on the back. There is a good booklet, with all the tracking information, musical background and performer details. Oddly the CDs seem to be in some random order, so that the Britten CDs are numbers 7, 9-11, 14, 23 and 25. They are sequenced thus within the box, and within the booklet the notes for each issue follow this random sequence, although the booklet’s opening pages have notes on the composers themselves in alphabetical order, with a footnote listing the disc number(s) in the box and the later page with the CD specific tracking and song information. (Yes, it’s complicated!). The texts are not included, although they are in the individual releases but would have doubled the thickness of the box here. Naxos has a link on its website to the texts – though when I last checked it, it did not lead me anywhere! Fortunately almost every singer’s diction is very good, although that might not help everybody with Britten’s French folksong settings!
It is to be hoped that this issue does not signal an end to Naxos’ recordings of this repertoire. There are many other composers and songs that could be added to its catalogue, including several listed above. The Somm label with its new ‘One hundred years of British song’ series will be exploring these riches (Vol. 1 came out in 2020), but there is still room for Naxos issues of the standard to be found in this admirable collection. Meanwhile we have this superb anthology of many of the finest English songs from the late Victorians to the present day.
Roy Westbrook
Contents
Disc 1
Walton, William: 3 Façade Settings, Anon in Love, A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table, etc.
Disc 2
Somervell, Arthur: Songs of Innocence, James Lee's Wife, A Shropshire Lad, etc.
Disc 3
Vaughan Williams, Ralph: Silent Noon, 5 Mystical Songs, On Wenlock Edge, etc.
Disc 4
Warlock, Peter: The Curlew, Lillygay (excerpts), Peterisms, 1 & 2, Saudades
Disc 5
Quilter, Roger: Shakespeare Songs, Pastoral Songs, To Julia, Go lovely rose, etc.
Disc 6
Holst, Gustav: 4 Songs for voice and violin, Vedic Hymns, 12 Humbert Wolfe songs, etc.
Disc 7
Britten, Benjamin: Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Michelangelo Sonnets, Winter Words, etc
Disc 8
Lehmann, Liza: The Daisy-Chain (excerpts), Bird Songs, Four Cautionary Tales, etc
Disc 9
Britten, Benjamin: Canticles 1-5, The Heart of the Matter
Disc 10
Britten, Benjamin: Folk Song Arrangements, Vols.1, 3, 5 "British Isles", etc.
Disc 11
Britten, Benjamin: Folk Song Arrangements (cont.), Vol.2 (France) Vol.4, "Moore's Irish Melodies”, Vol.6, (England), etc.
Disc 12
Quilter, Roger: Complete Folk Song Arrangements, Complete Part Songs for Women’s voices.
Disc 13
Finzi, Gerald: I Said to Love, Let Us Garlands Bring, Before and after Summer, Op. 16
Disc 14
Britten, Benjamin: 8 Folk Songs for Voice and Harp, Folksongs in Orchestral Arrangements, etc.
Disc 15
Vaughan Williams, Ralph: Songs of Travel, The House of Life, Linden Lea, 4 Poems by Fredegond Shove
Disc 16
Finzi, Gerald: Earth and Air and Rain, To a Poet, By Footpath and Stile.
Disc 17
Finzi, Gerald: A Young Man's Exhortation, Till Earth Outwears, Oh Fair to See.
Disc 18
Alwyn, William: Mirages, Nocturnes, Seascapes, Invocations, etc.
Disc 19
Ireland, John: 3 Hardy Songs, 5 Hardy Songs, Great Things, We'll to the Woods No More,
Sea Fever, Marigold, etc.
Disc 20
Gurney, Ivor: On the Downs, By a Bierside, 5 Elizabethan Songs, All night under the moon, Lights Out, etc.
Disc 21
Butterworth, George: 6 Songs from A Shropshire Lad, Folk Songs from Sussex, Bredon Hill and Other Songs.
Disc 22
Venables, Ian: On the Wings of Love, Venetian Songs - Love's Voice, At Malvern, etc.
Disc 23
Britten, Benjamin: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Tit for Tat, Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 3, "British Isles" (excerpts)
Disc 24
Dove, Jonathan: Out of Winter, Cut My Shadow, Ariel, All You Who Sleep Tonight
Disc 25
Britten, Benjamin: A Birthday Hansel, Who are these Children, 4 Burns Songs (arr. C. Matthews for voice and piano), etc
Singers and Pianists:
Ainsley, John Mark; Allen, Thomas; Bardon, Patricia; Bedford, Steuart; Bickley, Susan; Bonell, Carlos; Booth, Claire; Burnside, Iain; Constable, John; Davies, Neal; Davies, Philippa; Ellis, Osian; Feaviour, Margaret; Finley, Gerald; Fuller, Louisa; Gritton, Susan; Harris, Judith; Hill, Martyn; Hosford, Richard; Johnson, Graham; Kampen, Christopher van; Keenlyside, Simon; Kennedy, Andrew; Kirk, Vernon; Langridge, Philip; Lloyd, Frank; Lott, Felicity; Maltman, Christopher; Matthews-Owen, Andrew; McCready, Ivan; Metcalfe, John; Milne, Lisa; Norris, David Owen; Ogden, Craig; Pendrill, Christine; Pitt, Amanda; Ragin, Derek Lee; Rigby, Jean; Rolfe-Johnson, Anthony; Rozario, Patricia; Spence, Nicky; Spence, Toby; Thomas, Elin Manahan; Thomas, Joanne; Thompson, Adrian; Titus, Graham; Turner, John; Wakeford, Lucy; Watson, Janice; Wilde, Mark; Williams, Jeremy Huw; Williams, Roderick; Wilson-Johnson, David; Wyn-Rogers, Catherine, reader(s): Dench, Judi
Choir(s):BBC Singers; Wenhaston Boys Choir
Ensemble(s):Duke Quartet; Sacconi Quartet; Northern Sinfonia
Conductor(s): Barnett, Christopher; Bedford, Steuart; Joly, Simon
