Onyx has now completed pianist Malcolm Martineau’s project to record all of Benjamin Britten’s songs for voice and piano with a second two-CD set scheduled for release in the United States by harmonia mundi during the coming month of December. Seven vocalists appear on the new release, only two of whom appeared in the first volume, the tenors Nicky Spense and Robin Tritschler. The new vocalists include two tenors, Allan Clayton and Benjamin Hulett, soprano Elizabeth Atherton, mezzo Jennifer Johnston, and baritone Benedict Nelson.
Once again the production values leave much to be desired. Most likely Aldeburgh Music is again at least partially at fault. There is no need to belabor these problems, since they are exactly the same as they were in the first volume of this set.
Also again, however, these flaws are petty compared with the power of the performances. As was the case with the first volume, there is a diversity of moods reflecting an equally diverse selection of literary sources. Many of the brightest moments come with the settings of poems by W. H. Auden, all of which have an edge somewhere and some of which are downright sassy. One finds some of those same qualities of mood in Britten’s settings of Auden’s Scottish contemporary William Soutar. On the other hand Britten’s more seriously passionate side flowers in his 1940 setting of seven sonnets by Michelangelo Buonarroti, perhaps his most powerful love-letters to his lifetime companion, the tenor Peter Pears.
Like those in the first volume, these are not selections to be “consumed” exhaustively by playing the two discs beginning to end. They should be sampled; and, if the booklet notes are frustrating, the track listings provide adequate guidance for how the sampling can take place. The one selection that should be taken as an integrated whole is probably the William Blake collection that Britten composed in 1965 for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Britten judiciously selected seven of the Proverbs from Hell, following the first six with poems from the Songs of Experience and concluding with one from Auguries of Innocence. The texture of the accompaniment makes it clear that these are to be performed without interruption and should be respected as such when listening.
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