This CD has been put together with great love and imagination. We
have, firstly, what is arguably Britten’s finest song-cycle, his
Thomas Hardy settings,
Winter Words. Those are then followed by three
somewhat more recent cycles or groups, all by living composers. John
Parry’s witty songs set delightful East Anglian poems by Catherine
Marriott - who, though born in Yorkshire, claims to have been happily
‘Suffolk-ated’. Ben Parry’s
Season Songs are for
voice and marimba - a combination I’ve never come across before, but
which works wonderfully well. The accompaniment to
Autumn is quite
extraordinarily atmospheric, a low, murmuring tremolo that is felt as much
as heard.
The final group is by Andrew Leach, Four Songs to poems by the
‘man who went into the West’, R.S. Thomas. These fine settings
make an ideal conclusion, largely because the spiritual and poetic link
between Hardy and Thomas is so strong. The third song,
The Hearth, is
a particularly powerful one. The way its comfortable opening grows to a
climax of agonised protest reminded me strongly of Britten’s Auden
setting,
Out on the lawn I lie in bed from the
Spring
Symphony.
That’s interesting because it made me realise that the shade
of Britten is felt strongly as a presence throughout this disc. A few years
back, that might have been seen as a problem. Nowadays, and particularly
this year, it is somehow reassuring to find that Britten’s approach to
song-writing and word-setting lives on, albeit expressed through new
personalities. None of these talented composers is imitating slavishly yet
each appears to have many of the same priorities as Britten. These include
identifying strongly with the poem’s ‘atmosphere’:
creating a vocal line that reflects but is not governed by, the prosody:
and, perhaps above all, providing an accompaniment that not only illumines
the subject but which is in many ways the expressive core of the new
creation: the song.
The singer is Richard Edgar-Wilson, an experienced and
well-established recital and concert soloist. There is outstanding
musicianship on display here, not least in the accomplished and stylish
contributions of Edgar-Wilson. Yet my admiration makes it harder for me to
confess that I find some of his singing difficult to listen to, let alone
enjoy. He has a tendency to ‘switch on’ the often very wide,
fast vibrato, a feature common in ‘show singers’, and not
comfortable in this sort of repertoire. As the volume increases, he
sometimes acquires a strangulated quality, possibly not helped by the very
close recording. When Edgar-Wilson sings quietly, or uses
mezza-voce,
as at the beginning of
The Choirmaster’s Burial or
January, the effect is magical, colouring the music in a most
memorable way. There is no doubting the fine musical intelligence behind
this voice, so the occasional infelicities do stand out rather sharply.
All in all, then, a mixed experience. Despite my reservations, there
is so much to enjoy here, and I am grateful to have been introduced to these
fine new cycles.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Britten discography & review index:
Winter
Words
Detailed Track-Listing
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Winter Words, op.52
1. At Day-close in November
2. Midnight on the Great Western (or The Journeying Boy)
3. Wagtail and Baby (A Satire)
4. The Little Old Table
5. The Choirmaster’s Burial (or The Tenor Man’s Story)
6. Proud Songsters (Thrushes, Finches and Nightingales)
7. At the Railway Station, Upway (or The Convict and Boy with the
Violin)
8. Before Life and After
John PARRY (b.1930)
Six Songs (World Première recording)
9. Night
10. A Year to Remember
11. Red Sky
12. Dancing Lesson
13. Snow
14. Making Music
Ben PARRY (b.1965)
Season Songs (World Première recording)
15. Love and June
16. Summer Song
17. September
18. Autumn
19. November Dawn
20. Winter Madness
21. In April
22. Spring
Andrew LEACH (b.1954)
Four Songs (World Première recording)
23. January
24. The Hearth
25. The Cry
26. On the Farm
See also review by John Quinn
