Somm’s dedication to young artists – both
instrumental and vocal – is one of the most laudable things.
They have a knack of selecting young but highly promising artists,
some already in the early flourishes of a career, and giving
them a platform on disc. This one is no exception. Nathan Vale
has won the London Handel Singing Competition very recently;
more pertinently as far as this disc is concerned he won the
2005 AESS English Song Competition. And Paul Plummer is immersed
in the accompanist’s art, having studied with Johnson, Martineau
and Ball – and having performed widely.
They perform works
by a quartet of composers of whom one, Ian Venables, is very
much our contemporary but whose works are certainly consonant
with those of, say, Finzi; he’s also very well known as an active
supporter of Gurney’s memory in the society devoted to the composer’s
name. Vale’s voice is of a rather high, lyric tenor. It has
a youthful and vibrant ring to it but is occasionally prone
to strain as it goes up and then subject to forcing to over
compensate – as in the more treacherous moments of Gurney’s
Down by the Salley Gardens. Another
quirk is that of starting a note and then vibrating a lot –
which might prove off-putting to some. His Gurney singing is
generally fine but loses points in the detail. His kind of voice
proves less sensitive to subtle inflections of colour than more
practised artists. He does little with “silence” and “child”
in Snow for instance – which is not a plea for interventionist
melodrama but simply for increased colour deftly to broaden
the narrative meaning of phrases.
His Finzi shows
similar virtues but also as yet relative limitations. Oh
Fair to see was compiled from songs written many years apart
and needs a strong hand. Vale and Plummer tend generously to
indulge rubati here. They bring out the languor of As I Lay
in The Early Sun and bring a youthful, almost adolescent
folie to Finzi’s setting of Gurney’s Only The Wanderer.
Ian Partridge and Clifford Benson on Hyperion were altogether
more reflective, the older man looking back rather than the
young man looking forward. Since We Loved is charming,
up to a point, with Vale and Plummer; but so much richer, more
complex and touching with Partridge and Benson.
I suppose Pears
is the singer most associated with John Ireland’s The Land
of Lost Content though John Mitchinson and Alan Rowlands
made a stirring recording of it for Lyrita. The high Pears tenor
finds a reflection of sorts in Vale. Ireland wrote the cycle
for Gervase Elwes, who died before he could premiere it. I’ve
always supposed the allusion to Is My Team Ploughing
in the first of the cycle, The Lent Lily, is a tribute
to the man who premiered Vaughan Williams’s own cycle – and
who first recorded it. Elwes’s voice is very different to Vale’s
and indeed most other tenors – it had a baritonal extension
and though capable of great feeling was not especially beautiful.
Vale tends to lack ultimate vibrance at the top of his register
and compared with Mitchinson’s positively lascivious singing
of Ladslove is inclined to be chorister-chaste. Mitchinson
takes a muscular and tough view of the cycle, searching downwards
slightly to Elwes’s depths, whereas Vale keeps things strictly
clean. If Mitchinson brings out the seething sensuality of the
cycle Vale puts the stopper right back in – which again some
might prefer.
Ian Venables studied
with Arnell and then with Joubert amongst others. His chamber
music is well known but so are his songs and we have a selection
of them here. Love’s Voice is composed to the words of
John Addington Symonds, whose poetic beloved is not given a
personal pronoun. A Venetian setting, rich on canal rhythm,
mysterious chords mirroring the appearance of the beloved, and
traditional means, this is interpreted by Vale with a certain
disembodied cool. Elsewhere The Hippo, to words by Theodore
Roethke, might invite a comic setting; not for Venables who
vests it with Finzi-like lines; strangely serious.
The
recording in Potton Hall is first class and there are good notes
and full texts. Plummer is a secure and intelligent accompanist;
Vale is at the start of his career and his singing shows promise
– time will tell as to whether he can colour and inflect the better
to convey narrative threads and can bring a greater compass to
the voice as well. Finally you should certainly
note that Gurney's On Wenlock Edge, and Venables' The
Hippo and Vitae summa brevis are all premiere recordings.
Jonathan Woolf
for
details
Nathan Vale
(tenor)
