This CD is another
Naxos re-issue of recordings originally
available on the Collins label in the
1990s. This source has already brought
us a feast of Britten recordings, including
Steuart Bedford’s "Turn of the
Screw" and Felicity Lott’s superb
"Les Illuminations". So it
is exciting to be able to report that
the present issue meets the same very
high standards.
This is a beautifully
devised programme of music, taking us
through the five canticles – chamber
cantatas really – which span the composer’s
entire career. Their progress is interrupted
with Peter Pears’ 1983 revision of "The
Heart of the Matter". This sequence
of poems by Edith Sitwell encloses Canticle
III, "Still Falls the Rain",
a setting of her moving war poem, "The
Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn", and
includes both musical settings and readings,
which are performed here by Dame Judi
Dench.
Philip Langridge, the
element common to all the works, is
in fine voice throughout, and sings
with that mixture of passion and virtuosity
which makes his interpretations so memorable.
He gives a great sweep and, when required,
tenderness to the first Canticle, "My
Beloved is Mine", a setting of
a love poem by 17th century
writer Francis Quarles. The final couplet,
which resolves the song’s extravagant
emotions into a simple repetitive croon,
is utterly magical.
A portion of the Chester
Miracle play that tells the story of
Abraham and Isaac forms the text for
Canticle II. Listeners who know the
"War Requiem" will recognise
much of this music from the Offertorium
of that work. The producers here have
cunningly enhanced the piece by distancing
the soloists for the opening passage
where God speaks to Abraham. Jean Rigby,
with her unaffected yet highly expressive
singing, joins Langridge, with Steuart
Bedford again the sensitive pianist.
Canticle III, a setting
of an Edith Sitwell World War 2 poem,
includes an important part for horn,
played with great accomplishment by
Frank Lloyd. The first performance,
given in 1955 at the Wigmore Hall by
Britten, Pears and Dennis Brain, so
delighted the author that she collaborated
with Britten on a work for the following
year’s Aldeburgh Festival. This emerged
as "The Heart of the Matter",
as described above, which was then revised
by Pears, with different readings, after
the composer’s death. The reader here
is Dame Judi Dench, who delivers them
splendidly, though, given the nature
of the recording, could I feel have
gone for a shade more intimacy – she
is very declamatory in her approach.
The T.S. Eliot poem
that is the basis of Canticle IV of
1971 is among his best-known, and inspired
Britten to one of his most atmospheric
vocal works. His idea was to characterise
the three kings sharply by choosing
the three types of adult male voice
– counter-tenor, tenor and baritone.
The original singers were James Bowman,
Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk,
and, though their great recording with
the composer at the piano could never
be bettered, Langridge, Derek Lee Ragin
and Gerald Finley give a fine account.
For the final Canticle, "The Death
of Narcissus", one of the composer’s
final works, Philip Langridge is joined
by the harpist Osian Ellis. This is
a great bonus for the recording, for
Ellis worked extensively with Britten,
and he gave the premiere of the work,
which was composed for him and Pears.
This canticle belongs stylistically
to the same world as, for example, "Death
in Venice", with the harp here
used as an agent of colour and atmosphere
rather than as a textural or harmonic
support to the voice.
This is a very fine
recording of some of the most exquisite
vocal music of the past century, and
enshrines the work of so many fine artists.
Impossible to recommend it too highly.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Philip Langridge (tenor), Jean Rigby (contralto),
Gerald Finley (baritone), Derek Lee Ragin (counter-tenor),
Dame Judi Dench (narrator), Steuart Bedford (piano),
Frank Lloyd (horn), Osian Ellis (harp) 
