My True Love Hath My Heart
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
O Waly, Waly (1945-46) [3:44]
How sweet the answer (1957) [1:51]
Corpus Christi Carol (1961) [2:42]
Early one morning (1951-59) [2:29]
Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983)
King David (1919) [5:15]
Come Sing and Dance (1927) [3:58]
John IRELAND (1879-1962)
Her Song (1925) [2:45]
My true love hath my heart (1920) [1:57]
Tryst (1928) [3:24]
Ivor GURNEY (1890-1937)
Sleep (1914) [3:04]
By a Bierside (1916) [4:21]
Herbert HOWELLS
Gavotte (1919) [3:37]
Lost Love (1934) [4:00]
Michael HEAD (1900-1976)
Foxgloves (1932) [3:39]
Peter WARLOCK (1894-1930)
The First Mercy (1927) [2:51]
Michael HEAD
Cotswold Love (1938) [2:39]
Richard Rodney BENNETT (b. 1936)
A History of the Thé Dansant (1994) [10:33]
Sarah Connolly (mezzo); Malcolm Martineau (piano)
rec. 1-2 February 2011, All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London
CHANDOS CHAN10691 [63:00] 
Is it a sign of aging when one is regularly reminded of the first time one
encountered this or that piece of music? Four of the items in this marvellous
recital appeared on what I think was Dame Janet Baker’s very first recording,
“An Anthology of English Song”, a Saga LP, the young singer so sensitively
accompanied by Martin Isepp. Nothing will ever diminish the pleasure of listening
to that disc, and I am sure many will feel the same, but it is a measure of
the quality of this one from Sarah Connolly, that the performances can be
enjoyed just as much, and on their own terms. In the two songs by Herbert
Howells that appear in both collections, Connolly makes out a convincing case
for a larger scale and canvas. King David, at a slow basic tempo, and
with many lingering hesitations throughout, becomes, at five minutes, a very
big song indeed, and I think some of the narrative is lost, some simplicity
also, and perhaps, paradoxically, even some of the rapture too. I wouldn’t
always want to hear this magnificent song given like this, nor Come Sing
and Dance quite so full toned and imposing as this either. But the singer’s
viewpoint is perfectly valid, and her singing is magnificent. Later in the
recital she delivers equally beautiful performances of Howells’ delightful
Gavotte and Lost Love. This last, which I had not heard before,
is to words from Songs from the Chinese by Clifford Bax, brother of
Arnold. There is nothing overtly Chinese about them, but there is a certain
delicacy that Howells’ music matches perfectly. A late work, it is so bare
and fragile that many would not, I think, recognise the composer.
The recital opens with a group of four Britten songs, three of them folk song
arrangements. Britten understood that the strophic form of folk song allows
more for mood painting than word painting, and Connolly and her superb accompanist
understand this too, so that individual words might be highlighted, but for
reasons of expression over and above the word itself. Listen, for example,
to the singer’s way with the word “back”, in the phrase “I leaned my back
up against some oak.” Such treatment might become a mannerism from a lesser
singer, but here, and throughout the recital, it is done with impeccable taste.
In truth, I don’t much care for John Ireland’s exultant response to Sir Philip
Sydney’s text in My true love hath my heart, and this song brings out
the only negative response I have to Sarah Connolly’s singing, an occasional
tendency to allow vibrato to dominate the voice in louder, more passionate
passages. Tryst, on the other hand, is a beautifully atmospheric song,
its unresolved close underlining the wait for the beloved’s arrival. Her
Song is a masterly response to Hardy’s words. The music is exquisite,
and the word will also have to do, inadequate though it be, for Connolly’s
performance, alive to every word, every nuance of every word, certainly one
of the most beautiful performances I have ever heard of this song.
Gurney’s two songs also receive performances as fine as any you are likely
to hear. The subtlety of the singing can be heard in the two first notes of
Sleep, where Connolly’s swells remain tasteful and refined. Michael
Head consistently found highly attractive music to carry the words he chose,
without necessarily finding, or perhaps even seeking, much in the way of psychological
insight. Between the two Head songs lies the single item from Warlock, on
the face of it a conventional enough response to Bruce Blunt’s five stanzas
celebrating the minor creatures, unmentioned and forgotten, who witnessed
the birth of Christ alongside the ox and the ass. But listen closely, and
you will perceive just what is missing in Head’s songs, and just what we are
missing because of Warlock’s early and tragic death.
The booklet notes about all these songs were written by Michael Pilkington,
and they are just the job. Knowing that Warlock and Blunt were arrested, drunk
and disorderly, in Cadogan Street in 1927, is just the kind of anecdote that
helps appreciation of music, and the notes are full of such details. Richard
Rodney Bennett’s three-song mini-cycle is introduced by Meg Peacocke, who
wrote the words, and who is the composer’s sister. The singer also tells us
that she wanted to include some songs by “a living composer who was somehow
connected to the other music recorded here.” Well, the fact is that these
songs stick out like a sore thumb, but no matter, because they are tremendous.
The three poems explore different aspects of couples on fashionable continental
trips in the 1920s. Those who know Bennett’s music will not be surprised at
how adept he is at integrating twenties pastiche – foxtrot and tango – into
his own style, nor at the gently touching piano postlude that follows the
revelation that a bundle of old postcards shows how, decades ago, the couple
“once…were seen to be in love”.
Malcolm Martineau’s accompaniments are immensely subtle, detailed and full
of character. His role in the success of this recital is immeasurable. All
the sung words are provided and the recording is faultless. In short, this
is a most beautiful recital of English song. I feel sure it will do for a
young collector what Janet Baker’s did for me so many years ago, and praise
doesn’t come higher than that.
William Hedley
A gorgeous recital of English song that should, in a just world, become a
classic.