Vaughan Williams The First Songs of Travel Richard Standen (bass), Frederick Stone (piano) ALBCD055
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Here is the first commercial recording of Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, made in 1954 by bass Richard Standen and pianist Frederick Stone. Of the eight songs presented here (the ninth of the cycle was unknown at the time) five are world première releases, and the disc also brings us the only recording ever made of Malcolm Davidson’s A Christmas Carol. These recordings were originally issued on an LP in 1955 which had been discontinued by 1963. This release therefore represents the recovery for the public of an important historical document.
The disc opens with the Songs of Travel. It is, of course, immediately apparent from Standen’s rolled "r"s (which I personally love), vibrato, and enunciation of the vowels that this is an historical recording, but these elements by no means detract from a sensitive and beautiful rendition of the song cycle. Standen and his accomplished pianist, Frederick Stone, deliver an especially tender performance of Bright Is The Ring of Words. Other songs in the cycle are pushed along at a fairly brisk pace, which imparts a good sense of momentum and drive. A few other Vaughan Williams songs follow, including the gorgeous Linden Lea, after which Standen moves on to other composers starting with Frederick Keel’s Three Salt-Water Ballads, which he sings with relish and gusto, clearly communicating his pleasure in these songs to the listener. The sea theme is continued with two of Michael Head’s Six Sea Songs, two of Stanford’s Songs of the Sea, and John Ireland’s Sea Fever. Next are two songs by composers who were completely unfamiliar to me, but are well worth hearing: the atmospheric Four By The Clock by Albert Mallinson, and Malcolm Davidson’s A Christmas Carol. The disc ends in a rumbustious manner with Warlock’s Captain Stratton’s Fancy. Throughout the recording the diction is excellent, with fine singing and piano playing. The sound is, alas, rather compressed and boxy, but this is my only complaint about an otherwise excellent release.
Ian Venables, Ralph Vaughan Williams Portraits of a Mind Alessandro Fisher (tenor), The Navarra Quartet, Williams Vann (piano) ALBCD057
Buy this disc for the wonderful, searingly beautiful Ian Venables song cycle Portraits of a Mind. The sandwich filling between two chunks of Vaughan Williams, these five songs are radiant, dramatic, and passionate. I particularly loved Venables’ atmospheric arrangement of one of my childhood favourites, the R. L. Stevenson poem From a Railway Carriage, and also the setting of Christina Rossetti’s Echo, especially fervent and intense. The Vaughan Williams song cycle On Wenlock Edge, which opens the disc, is given a dramatic rendition by Fisher, the Navarra String Quartet, and William Vann, who are clearly aiming for a wild, harsh, and edgy sound. This works well in the opening eponymous song, but the rest of the pieces lack warmth, depth, and colour. Fisher’s voice is extremely hard-edged, with a wilder vibrato than seems appropriate, and he captures no differentiation (except one of dynamics) between the ghost and the live man in Is My Team Ploughing?, which was rather disappointing. There are a few other issues, such as an occasional odd pronunciation from Fisher, and in Bredon Hill there are intonation and sound-production problems from the quartet. The disc concludes with an arrangement of Vaughan Williams’s Four Hymns for tenor, string quartet, and piano. Again, I found Fisher’s voice too harsh and unrelenting for these. The disc presents a nicely-balanced programme of these glorious Vaughan Williams works and the beautiful Ian Venables song cycle, with excellent booklet notes and production, but the performances (especially the singer’s voice) are not to my taste, for reasons given above.
BR KLASSIK
Gustav Holst The Planets Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Daniel Harding (conductor) 900208
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Here is a fine and dramatic recording of Holst’s masterpiece The Planets, with Daniel Harding the very assured conductor of the Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The recording gets off to an excellent start. It is very unusual but extremely welcome to hear so clearly the dynamic shaping in the col legno strings at the start of Mars. The movement is taken at a slow pace, with Harding going for the inexorable approach somewhat at the expense of euphoria and drive (Karajan, one might note, did manage to reconcile all these elements). On the whole this Mars is therefore more solemn than other renditions, but not as exhilarating and thrilling as it could be. Venus is tender and full of beauty, while the I Vow To Thee My Country melody in Jupiter is pleasingly expansive and flowing; Harding doesn’t make the mistake of taking it too slowly. Saturn is also very inexorable and uncompromising, while Neptune is suitably mysterious, with a magical finish as the voices fade out so gradually that one cannot make out when they actually end. The orchestra is in fine fettle, with a focused sound to the strings which, however, remain sweet of tone. On the whole this is a commendable addition to the ever-burgeoning catalogue of recordings of this great work.
CAPELLA RECORDS
A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry’s Court, Christmas 1400, London Cappella Romana, Alexander Lingas (director) CR427 SACD
In December 1400 the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos visited Henry IV, who had recently succeeded Richard II as King of England. They met at Blackheath and Henry then conducted Manuel to Eltham Palace, where they celebrated Christmas together. It is therefore likely that the Palace witnessed a very rare combination of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox festive music, presented here in three sections: From the Services of Christmas Eve, From the Services of Christmas Day, and At the Second Vespers on Christmas Evening. The performances from Cappella Romana under their director Alexander Lingas are all excellent. The music is atmospheric and beautiful, the two traditions working well together, and the disc is well-presented with an eye-catching and extremely appropriate cover image of a painting depicting the meeting of Henry and Manuel. The booklet notes, including texts and citations of performance additions, lend scholarly weight to the proceedings.
For this version of Delius’s Hassan, composed as incidental music for James Elroy Flecker’s play The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand, the Britten Sinfonia have commissioned Meurig Bowen to put together brief narrative extracts from the play. The music is as glorious as ever but the narration, interspersed with its main sections, really helps to put it in context and explain what is going on. I found the whole captivating, beautiful, and invigorating --so strongly did it take hold of me that I was immediately transported back to when I had first heard and fallen in love with this music in my mid-teenage years. The performance from the Britten Sinfonia is excellent, as are all the artists involved (albeit with occasional slight shrieking from the sopranos of the Britten Sinfonia Voices), and Zeb Soanes brings the narration to life with good characterisations. This is a superb disc, and comes very highly recommended.
Parry Scenes from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound; Blest Pair of Sirens London Mozart Players; Crouch End Festival Chorus; William Vann (conductor) CHSA 5317
Parry composed his Scenes from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound in response to his first major commission from the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1880. He selected parts of Shelley’s lyric drama Prometheus Unbound for this cantata, and although the work’s reception at the premiere was very mixed, the date has nevertheless gone down in history as a candidate for that most intangible of events, the birth of modern English music. The second work on the disc, Blest Pair of Sirens, was commissioned by Charles Villiers Stanford and the London Bach Choir for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, and by contrast was received with tremendous acclaim. Although Blest Pair of Sirens has had a number of recordings, this is the world première recording of Scenes from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, which makes it an important release. The orchestra and a fine line-up of soloists –soprano Sarah Fox, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, tenor David Butt Philip and bass-baritone Neal Davies– perform well, but both pieces are sadly let down by the choir, who are in places quite badly out of tune. Much of their singing is slightly flat and the ensemble is also rather ragged in places. This is a great shame, since it does detract from what would otherwise be a good performance —although I would also have liked more passion and fire overall.
NAXOS
Philip Lane Sleighbell Serenade Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Gavin Sutherland (conductor) 8.555880
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
The attractive and vivacious London Salute, written to celebrate the BBC’S sixtieth anniversary, opens a disc of light music by contemporary composer Philip Lane. The other works featured include the Diversions on a Theme of Paganini, the early Cotswold Dances which beautifully depict Lane’s own Gloucestershire and Cotswold hills, and Three Christmas Pictures (one movement of which is the eponymous Sleighbell Serenade), as well as several nautically-inspired works.
All the pieces on the disc clearly demonstrate Lane’s superb orchestration skills, mastery of different musical styles and ability to paint vivid pictures in the minds of his listeners; the music is charming, scintillating, and engaging throughout. Lane has an outstanding advocate in conductor Gavin Sutherland, who imparts absolute confidence and conviction in this music, assisted by the excellent performances of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. One tiny gripe is that the metadata doesn’t seem to be present, but otherwise this is a truly delightful disc and highly recommended to all lovers of light music.
Edward German Symphony No. 2 (Norwich) National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Andrew Penny (conductor) 8.555228
Although it is always good to see reissues of English music discs, as in the case of this recording (previously available on the Marco Polo label), one really could wish for a better performance than the one given here. German’s Norwich Symphony has been recorded in a very boomy acoustic, with not enough definition in the microphones, which are placed too far back and are thus overly receptive to ambient sound while they fail to pick up enough clarity in the instruments. There is a lack of incisiveness in both sound and playing, as well as intonation problems (especially in the brass), bowing and ensemble issues. The disc also includes the ValseGracieuse, in which there is little sense of pulse or contour —a shame, as it’s a gorgeous little piece— and the Welsh Rhapsody. The recording here just doesn’t do these wonderful works justice, either from the point of view of the performance standard or with regard to capturing the excellent detail in German’s orchestration, which is completely lost due to the recorded sound.--Em Marshall-Luck
