This past July the Onyx label released a two-CD set, which is the first of two volumes to encompass all of Benjamin Britten’s songs for voice and piano. According to the Product Description on its Amazon page, this project was initiated by the pianist Malcolm Martineau, who serves as accompanist for all of the songs in this collection. As singers he has recruited eight vocalists, five of whom are tenors: Andrew Tortise, James Geer, Ben Johnson, Nicky Spence, and Robin Tritschler. Three vocalists then account for the remaining ranges: soprano Katherine Broderick, mezzo Caryl Hughes, and baritone Philip Smith.
Martineau is an accomplished accompanist. He clearly has a great love for Britten’s repertoire, and that love comes through in the clarity of execution emerging from his engagement with each of the vocal soloists. So much attention is given to Britten’s orchestral compositions that most of the works in this initial volume tend to be neglected, particularly in performances given in the United States. Martineau makes a firm case that such neglect is undeserved.
Nevertheless, Britten definitely deserved better, not from the performers but from those responsible for the booklet of notes and texts. Presumably, Aldeburgh Music had a hand in this side of the production, which makes matters all the more unfortunate. One would have thought that Aldeburgh had a “historical” obligation to supplement the finest performances of Britten’s music with documentation of equal quality. Nevertheless, the presentation of the texts is typographically sloppy and even includes a reversal of the order of two of the songs. Furthermore, the effort to account for which songs were composed when may best be described as lackadaisical; and chronology has nothing to do with the order in which they are presented on the individual CDs.
Fortunately, the music has the power to transcend these petty flaws. Everything is delightful, but I feel need to call attention to two specific offerings. One is the setting of nine of the nineteen poems of John Donne known as the Holy Sonnets, which Britten composed in August of 1945, not long after Peter Grimes. For most readers the most familiar of these is “Death be not proud, though some have called thee;” and Britten selected this to conclude his set. However, thanks to John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic, many of us have become acquainted with “Batter my heart, three-personed God;” and it is hard to resist comparing the two settings. Most important is that, in all of his settings, Britten shows a clear understanding of the structural constraints of the sonnet. His music does not follow those constraints slavishly; but, when one reads the text while listening to his music, one appreciates the ways in which he judiciously chooses when to accept those constraints and when to reject them. Adams’ setting, on the other hand, focuses more on the words themselves than on the framework within which those words are situated.
There are also major rhetorical distinctions. Britten has structured his collection around an alternation between meditative and agitated tempos. As might be guessed, “Batter my heart” gets a more agitated setting; but it does not race through the text. Britten just finds the right path to capture the words’ sense of inner turmoil. Adams proceeds at a slower pace through a more extended dialog between voice and instruments (particularly the timpani, which is a bit too explicit a reference to that intense heartbeat). From a theatrical point of view, those familiar with Adams may find Britten’s setting a bit too matter-of-fact; but Britten’s tends to be the more literate account of the source material.
The second offering worthy of attention comes from his lighter side. The four selections collected as Cabaret Songs were posthumously published in 1980. There were actually composed between 1937 and 1939 and are settings of poems by W. H. Auden. The first three of the songs (“Calypso,” “O tell me the truth about love,” and “Johnny”) abound with wit, in not only the ways in which Auden twists his words but also Britten’s ability to follow each of those twists, recognizing it without blatantly underscoring it. However, “Johnny” ultimately ends in the grave and is therefore perfectly followed by the dark “Funeral Blues,” which Britten had set in a different version in his incidental music for Auden’s play The Ascent of F6. This makes the entire set a bit of a roller-coaster ride; but the ride is a thoroughly unforgettable one.
Comments