Michael TIPPETT (1905-1998)
A Child of Our Time (1939-41) [73:17]
Cynthia Haymon (soprano), Cynthia Clarey (contralto), Damon Evans (tenor),
Willard White (bass)
London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Richard Hickox
rec. 1992, Blackheath Concert Hall, London
CHANDOS CHAN10869X [73:17]
The music world was shocked and deeply saddened by Richard
Hickox’s untimely death in 2008 at the age of sixty, but with over 280
recordings to his name there is a more than substantial legacy on which we
can look back with gratitude. You can read more on his obituary page here.
The Chandos label’s “series of re-issues underway” will
be a celebration of and testimony to Hickox’s work.
I have a particular affection for this piece as it was one of the early experiences
I had as a very green-around-the-ears student at the Royal Academy of Music,
drafted in as a chorus member for the RAM Tippett Festival in 1985. For some
reason the original release of this Chandos recording of A Child of Our
Time escaped review on this site, but it followed their award-winning
recording of Britten’s War Requiem (review)
with the same forces, and inevitably generated much interest at the time.
Commentators admired the accuracy of the performance and generally very high
quality, but arguments about its broad tempi and lack of drama rumbled around
in some quarters. Now we can look back with a little more objectivity.
Yes, Hickox goes for a more sustained view of some of these movements, but
with the Rolls-Royce qualities of his LSO players and chorus I sense he can
more than get away with it, creating an electric atmosphere in something like
the opening of Part II, ‘A star rises in mid-winter’.
There is no lack of energy and pulse in the swifter and more dramatic sections,
and as a result the contrasts are delivered with plenty of impact. The soloists
are all very strong, top and bottom particularly well represented by the gorgeous
tones of Cynthia Haymon and the irrepressibly powerful but also subtly expressive
Willard White. Alto Cynthia Clarey takes a while to warm up but is better
further along, her darker tones suiting the duet “The boy becomes
desperate in his agony” and The dark forces rise like a flood
in Part II. Tenor Damon Evans is good enough and suitably non-heroic as the
boy singing in his prison, though I’m not so keen on the way many of
his notes seem to take a moment to emerge.
The LSO chorus is excellent as you would expect, creating a magical halo around
spirituals such as O, by and by and delivering plenty of character
elsewhere. Texts are all given in the booklet, including translation into
French and German. This release indicates it has been given a 2015 digital
re-mastering but I don’t have the original for any kind of comparison.
In any case there can be no complaints about sound quality, with excellent
balance and a finely honed sonic stream which moves along as smoothly as the
‘Deep river’ of the finale.
There are other recordings around, and fans of Tippett will always want the
composer’s own conducting as a reference. The Naxos re-release of the
Collins Classics recording from 1991 (see review)
has many fine qualities and for some has the greatest emotional impact of
any. You may want Sir Colin Davis’s Decca version for Jessye Norman’s
singing as much as anything else, though I don’t find it quite as distressingly
‘lumbering’ as Rob Barnett did in his review.
While it has acquired something of a classic status amongst some commentators
Gwyn Parry-Jones’s comments in his Naxos review are telling if perhaps
not entirely fair; John
Quinn was more welcoming. Davis’s 2003 Dresden recording from the
Profil label is also not definitive (see review),
with its rather noisy live ambience and Teutonic linguistic emphases, though
there is no doubting the sincerity of the performance. Davis also has a recording
via the LSO Live label LSO0670 which struggles a little in the rather flat
Barbican acoustic but somehow manages to pack many a tear-jerking moment.
I’ve had a copy of André Previn’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
recording knocking around since the 1980s, but I’ve held onto it more
for sentimental reasons than for the quality of the performance. Edward Greenfield
admired it at the time, but it was more of a novelty as the only alternative
aside from Colin Davis then on Philips, and another venerable recording with
the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir John
Pritchard on Argo and now via Belart.
Of all the versions I’ve come across there is no all-round alternative
I would prefer over this superb Chandos recording. Other performances have
their own special moments and different qualities, and this one is certainly
pitched at a slightly lower emotional edge than for instance Tippett’s
own recording on that aforementioned Naxos re-release. Its effect is however
as much cumulative as it can be immediate, and if you take the performance
as a whole it provides as overwhelming an experience as any.
Dominy Clements
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