STANFORD
Songs Vol. 2.
Stephen Varcoe: baritone,
Clifford Benson: piano.
Hyperion CDA67124 77m
DDD.
Tragodie op.14 No.5. The Clown's Songs from 'Twelth Night op.65
- O mistress mine / Come away Death / The rain it raineth every day. The
Pibroch op.157 No.1. Phoebe op.125 No.3. Songs Songs of the Sea op.91 - Drake's
Drum / Outward Bound / Devon O Devon in wind and rain / Homeward Bound /
The 'Old Superb'. For ever mine. Windy Nights op.30 No.4. A Lullaby op.19
No.2. To the Rose op.19 No.3. Songs of faith Set 2- To the Soul op.97 No.4
/ Joy shipmate joy! Op.97 No.6. The Fairy Lough op.77 No.2. Tom Lemmin. A
Fire of Turf op.139 - A Fire of Turf / The Chapel on the Hill / Cowslip Time
/ Scared / Blackberry Time / The Fair / The west Wind.
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
In my comments on the first volume of
this series I noted that the songs chosen were mostly very early or very
late works. Now we have a good representation of the strength and variety
of the central, most important, part of Stanford's career. Here, too, I am
happy to find a song I did not know, the unpublished Tom Leminn. It
is a curious, sardonic piece, not really paralleled elsewhere in Stanford.
Certain strictures I made about the performances on the previous CD can be
partly modified now. Benson still splits too many chords, but you get used
to that, and Varcoe still forsakes the virtues of a well-supported tone (which
is impressive when he uses it, as in the climaxes of Come away,death)
for a gentle crooning. However, while before the results were often husky
and insecure, here he seems much more in control. Whether his extreme pianissimos
in Outward Bound would reach the back of a concert hall I do not know,
but as heard here the emission is beautifully steady, the line finely drawn.
Now to some queries and grouses. I never thought I would have to pick Jeremy
Dibble up on a matter of Stanfordian fact but I have to point out that A
Child's Garland of Songs, in the original Longman edition of 1892 (I
have a copy in front of me as I write), consists entirely of solo songs.
It was for the 1914 Curwen edition that Stanford arranged three of the pieces
for two-part chorus and made rather fidgety revisions to several others
(including Windy Nights), specifying them as unison songs; the opposite
of the situation described by Dibble. I prefer Windy Nights as it
was originally but cannot deny that Stanford's final thoughts were the Curwen
version used here.
Regarding the interpretation of Tragödie perhaps a Heine expert
should be brought in but I have always felt, and on balance still do, that
the couple described in the last section is not, pace Dibble, the
one in the first part, since I believe they die in the middle and what we
have at the end is another prize pair doing exactly the same thing. This
would appear to be the sense of both the English title The Tragedy of
Life and of Stanford's postlude which quotes the opening call to flight.
A few textual emendations call for explanation. On the penultimate page of
The West Wind (Oh, wild wind from the distant west) the vocal
line has been altered, perhaps to its advantage, but it would be nice to
know on what authority.
At the end of the fourth stanza of To the Soul Whitman's words as
they appear in the printed score are nor any bounds bound us, and
so they were sung by Christopher Maltman in the orchestral version, also
under Dibble's editorship (Hyperion CDA 67065). In my copy of Leaves of
Grass the words are nor any bounds bounding us and the music here
has been "corrected" to incorporate that reading. Since Leaves of Grass
was revised many times I would suggest that Stanford set correctly the edition
he had and that it would have been better not to tamper.
Just after this, at We float, In Time and Space, there is an important
piano marking in the piano part. Reference to the orchestral version
shows that Stanford wanted a real change of colour here. If correctly observed
the effect of the voice continuing forte while the piano all but
disappears is extraordinary - the voice really does seem to float in time
and space. Unfortunately, Benson here ploughs on at a relentless
forte. This is a real misrepresentation of the music.
These performances often amend Stanford's tempo markings to no good purpose.
Dibble's notes state that "O mistress mine, often portrayed as capricious
and whimsical … is here given an alternative reading as a rueful meditation
on the passing of youth." But the marking is allegretto con moto (this
seems andante or less) and observance of it would show the "rueful
meditation" to be Varcoe's and Benson's, not Stanford's. This Shakespeare
group marks perhaps the interpretative low-point of the disc. In Come
away, death Benson lengthens his upbeat quaver chords in the introduction
and shortens his dotted quaver rests when the singer has entered, to the
extent that I had to get out the score to remind myself of what Stanford
had really written. Unfortunately, not all listeners will have a score handy.
And finally, the vigorous, bracing treatment of The rain it raineth every
day hardly ties with Stanford's moderato e leggiero. The piece
assumes more poignancy at a slower tempo. Also, Varcoe's semiquavers are
badly aspirated and the final piano flourish should surely not be pedalled.
Another casualty is Blackberry Time. It is attractive enough in a
bluff, hearty sort of way, but where is the "physical fatigue" that Plunket
Greene found in it? Turn to the old Hyperion LP by Griffett and Benson and
you will find poetry of a different order. A proper observance of Stanford's
non troppo mosso is only the starting point; they have really understood
that this is a song about weariness to which memory has brought enchantment.
Since the Griffett LPs were generally unsatisfactory it is nice to report
that they contain at least one performance to cherish.
Over Scared I have some sympathy with the performers since this is
an embarrassingly silly poem which Stanford does nothing to mitigate. Getting
it over as quickly as possible is an understandable solution but an observance
of Stanford's Lento might have produced at least some atmosphere.
Scared brings me to one of two queries I have over the repertoire chosen.
Although A Fire of Turf, from which it comes, contains some fine numbers
it seems strange that it was selected, as a complete Irish cycle, in preference
to the musically richer Irish Idyll (which is at least available
elsewhere) or Cushendall (which is not). However, the postlude,
exquisitely played by Benson, is so beautiful as to silence criticism.
My other query is whether it was necessary to give up over 17 minutes to
Songs of the Sea with piano accompaniment when modern versions with
orchestra by Allen and Luxon exist. The conviction both performers bring
to Drake's Drum is its own justification (less so that of The Old
Superb where Benson's enthusiasm often causes him to forge ahead of the
singer). But turn to either orchestral version and the gain in colour is
evident. If you want to hear at last a really firm, well-supported voice
throughout its range and crystal-clear diction, though, you'll have to go
back to the old Peter Dawson recording (once available on World Record Club).
Or will you? When I want to listen to Drake's Drum and The Old
Superb (only these two, alas) for sheer pleasure, I get out an old Saga
LP by the young John Shirley-Quirk. Here it matters not a jot that the
accompaniment is piano only (and dimly recorded at that); here is a glorious
voice in its first prime with faultless technique and a way of communicating
words beside which even Dawson seems too buttoned up. This disc should be
reissued - it also contains the best ever Songs of Travel.
Before leaving Songs of the Sea, I must say that performances of
Homeward Bound seem to be getting slower and slower. Is the enchanted,
rarefied Debussyian atmosphere Varcoe and Benson find in it, however convincing
in itself, what Stanford wanted? The two modern orchestral versions have
a little more movement, but go back to Dawson, with Leeds Festival forces
only a generation younger than those that had premièred the work under
Stanford's baton, and the piece assumes an easy flow (the un-named conductor
surely beat in two rather than six) yet there is no sense of haste. This
is surely the "authentic" version, though an attempt to find depths in Stanford
unknown to his contemporaries (as we do today with Mahler or Elgar) may not
be fruitless.
Although most of the songs here are very rare, there are a few others for
which at least some interpretative tradition exists. The Pibroch is
largely successful but older singers knew how to extract a poetry from the
word afar which is not hinted at here. And finally The Fairy
Lough. It is tempting to take it very slowly, as Varcoe and Benson do,
since for much of the time its poetic atmosphere seems to gain. But your
moths won't flit and your fairy horsemen won't get their hoofs of the ground.
The Griffett performance, not to speak of the classic Ferrier, finds a more
convincing tempo, and both shave more than half a minute off Varcoe's timing.
If all this seems very negative the successes still considerably outweigh
the failures. Stanford is shown to be a major European songwriter and that
is the main thing. Go and buy, but don't think the whole story is here.
Christopher Howell
