The personal Roger Quilter : Mark Stone - Songs of Roger Quilter vol 3

Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow present Volume III in their series the Complete Roger Quilter Songbook, on Stone Records. Quilter made more settings of Shakepeare than most others, so Volume I in the series focussed on his Shakespeare settings, while volume II featured his settings of Jacobean poets. In contrast, this third volume highlights Quilter's interest in folk-inspired sources.  This shows a more informal Quilter than the greatly admired art songs, but reveals the intimate side of Quilter's personality. Superb notes enhance this series, which re-assesses the range of Quilter's output.

The Arnold Book of Old Songs was c ollected for Arnold Vivian.  Quilter and his older brother Arnold, for whom their nephew was named, seem to have ben very different personalities, though they were very close.  Arnold was extravert, athletic, tall (6 foot 7) and had served in the Boer War.  He was also part of the circle around Rupert Brooke, whom he helped bury.  Two weeks later, he, too, was killed at Gallipoli.  When the younger Arnold joined the Grenadier Guards at the outbreak of the Second World War,  Quilter expanded a smaller collection published in 1924, for Arnold to sing when he was away.But yet again, tragedy struck, when Arnold was shot in September 1942 while trying to escape from a prisoner of war camp.

The Arnold Songs are based on songs from earlier vernacular songs, which are so well known that they've enetered the mainstream almost as popular song.  Drink to me only with thine eyes is a setting of Ben Johnson, based on Philostratus, the second-century Greek poet,  the tune we know now published in the late 18th century.  Similarly, My Lady Greensleeves was first published in 1600 as a lute song, though there are references to it in Shakespeare's The merry wives of Windsor, suggesting that it was well-known long before. Barbara Allen  was mentioned in Pepys diaries.It is folk song as popular music, a best seller in the ballad-selling broadside trade, enabling its dissemination, with many regional variations,  throughout the English-speaking world.  Quilter's version adapts the tune with great sensitivity.  Delicate piano figures illuminate the name "Barbara Allen", suggesting her beauty: perhaps it even suggests a softer side of her nature, which explains her change of heart. Dramatic chords evoke the "dead bell". Barbara dies, chastened and meek : this is no simple love story.

The Irish songs in the Arnold Bookof Songs also originate from the end of the 18th century. The text for Believe me, if all those endearing young charms could come from two sources in the mid 17th century, but the form suggest traditionl ballad.  The jolly, rythmic Oh ! 'tis sweet to think seems to stem from country dance. All three of the Scottish songs have connections to Robert Burns, who collected and adapted songs as part of his fascination with all things Scottish.  Ye banks and braes is now so famous that it's almost basic repertoire.  Charlie is my darling  refers to  Bonnie Prince Charlie. Though the text is by Lady Nairne, the song may have  had topical appeal for people who knew the Jacobite cause and its brutal suppression at Culloden in 1746.  Quilter's Ca' the Yowes is very different to earlier arrangements, such as the version by Maurice Jacobsen made famous by Kathleen Ferrier, and the version by Benjamin Britten, much more frequently perfomed.  Jacobsens's version is gentle, like a lullaby, while Britten's version is more austere and plaintive, as befits a song which might once have been a lament from harsh times, long ago.  Both Britten and Quilter evoke a sense of abandoned desolation, recognizing the context from which the song might have arisen. Quilter's version is even closer to lament, particularly in favouring a lower, masculine register : the piano part is understated, suggesting, perhaps, the bleak internal landscape. In the final verse, the voice swells in intensity : "I can die but canna part, My bonnie dearie".  The  song is attrributed to Isobel "Tibbie" Pagan (1741-1821)  a colourful character, who owned an alehouse where she wrote poems and sang songs for her customers. Robert Burns heard it sung by a clergyman, who may or not have got it direct.  Burns himself revised his version of the poem three times. (Please read more here). 

Also of interest is Quilter's version of The Rose of Tralee based on  a poem from 1846, set  in the same period. The song is so popular that it has entered into the canon as "traditional song", and may well have antecedents.  Quilter develops the piano part with subtle sophistication : art song without artifice.. Although Quilter has been described by some as a "walled garden", perfect but intensely private, he was well aware of what was happening in the world around him.  Marian Anderson and Quilter were friends,  and he accompanied her in his own songs at her WigmoreHall debut in 1928.  I got a robe was written for the occasion, based on a an arrangement of a spiritual arranged by Harry Burlieigh as Heav'n, heav'n.  Quilter also worked in musicalm theatre, partnering Rodney Bennett (father of Richard Rodney Bennnet) in several popular musicals, of which Where the rainbow ends was successful enough to encouage Quilter to write a light opera The blue boar, premiered as Julia..  Two songs from Songs from "Love at the Inn" suggest a more modest, vaguely pastoral theme.  More substantial  is The Man behind the Plough, Bennett's adaptation of a 19th century French song, which is  included among the four French songs in the Arnold Book of Songs, The Pretty Month of May derived from a composer at the court of Louis XIII. Quilter's Four Songs of Mirza Schaffy  set poems in German based on an Azerbaijani poet who taught languages in Germany.  of these Die helle Sonne leuchtet is lyrical, the piano - Quilter's instrument - radiant, emphasising the glorious crescendo in the final verse.

More personal is Daisies after the rain by a contemprary of Quilter's, Judith Bickle, published in 1951. All his life, Quilter was plagued by ill health, yet survived, unlike his more robust relatives and friends. Like the wild daisies in the poem,  humble blooms can defy odds that fell more showy flowers.  Thus it is appropriate that Stone and Barlow conclude this recording with The Ash Grove, fromThe Arnold Book of Songs. The song as  Llwyn Onn was first published in 1802 in  a collection of Bardic songs called The Bardic Museum, which implies that even then it had early origins.  Texts vary. Quilter set words by Rodney Bennett who understood  very well how their  meaning applied to Quilter's personal life.  The piano line is discreet, intensifying the suppressed emotional anguish.   Once friends gathered in the Ash Grove  "How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,/ and time seemed to us to stretch endless away,/The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly/ Could fade as a dream in the coming of day!"   But memories live on in the  song of a lone bird and the whisper of the wind.   In 1950, Quilter was nearing his own end, so it mattered to him that "there in the Ash Grove my heart be at rest".

Ca' the yowes to the knowes - folk song and art song

New from Stone Records, Part 3 in their Roger Quilter Complete Songs series,  Roger Quilter's Ca' the yowes with Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow.  Quilter's Ca' the yowes comes from a a set named the Arnold Book of Old Songs, written for Arnold Vivian, Quilter's nephew, named after Quilter's brother Arnold, killed at Gallipolli.  Tragically, Vivian, too, was killed, in 1942, shot while attempting to escape from a prisoner of war camp. Quilter's Ca' the Yowes is very different to earlier arrangements, such as the version by Maurice Jacobsen made famous by Kathleen Ferrier, and the version by Benjamin Britten, much more frequently perfomed.  Jacobsens's version is gentle, like a lullaby, while Britten's version is more austere and plaintive, as befits a song which might once have been a lament from harsh times, long ago.  Both Britten and Quilter evoke a sense of abandoned desolation, recognizing the context from which the song might have arisen. Quilter's version is even closer to lament, particularly in favouring a lower, masculine register : the piano part is understated, suggesting, perhaps, the bleak internal landscape. In the final verse, the voice swells in intensity : "I can die but canna part, My bonnie dearie".  The  song is attrributed to Isobel "Tibbie" Pagan (1741-1821)  a colourful character, who owned an alehouse where she wrote poems and sang songs for her customers.  Click HERE for a well researched piece on the evidence of Pagan's life.  It seems she was an outsider, not only because of her looks, but may have been born illegitimate. Nonetheless, the song's origins may well go much further back, to undocumented traditional ballad.  (Pagan wasn't a farmer, nor was she illiterate).  Robert Burns heard it sung by a clergyman, who may or not have got it direct.  Burns himself revised his version of the poem three times. The version in the photo at right was published in 1790.

Ca' the Yowes demonstrates one of the fundamentals of vernacular song, that the music and text are  flexible, depending on the performer or composer.  Furthermore, these songs were being collected, and notated, too, long before the "folk revival" at the turn of the 20th century.  It's just a question of luck which performer happens to be collected, and that doesn't stop good composers and performers from making the most of the material at hand.   

Please also see my piece Morbid Lullabies : ballads, folk song, art song and creative vision 

Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony - Andrew Manze RLPO

Andrew Manze Ralph Vaughan Williams series with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and choir for Onyx continues with A Sea Symphony (soloists Sarah Fox and Mark Stone) and The Lark Ascending (soloist James Ehnes).  Previous releases (Symphonies 2 and 8 in 2016,  3 and 4 in 2017, and 5 & 6 earlier in 2018) should leave listeners in no doubt that this is a significant series. Here we start at the beginning, with what is effectively the first symphony, premiered in 1910.  Given that Martyn Brabbins recorded A Sea Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for Hyperion recently, (please read more here) one might ask whether one should choose between the two. But such comparisons are meaningless: simple either/or judgements don't develop listening skills.  Every good performance has something of merit, whatever the pros or con.  Manze has by far the stronger soloists, though on balance, Brabbins offers more in terms of orchestra and chorus. We need them both. Be glad that we live in an age where we get variety !

If this A Sea Symphony doesn't begin with quite the dramatic spectacle it might, though the timpani roll and trumpets blaze, Manze compensates by emphasizing the undercurrents : the strings surge, suggesting the undertow from which the sprightly woodwinds emerge. This highlights the  "A Song for All Seas, All Ships". Mark Stone's rich deep baritone rings out. A truly vigorous  "Today a brief rude recitative" : the sailor here is a distinctive individual with the confidence to confront whatever may lie ahead, particularly appropriate in the context of the composer's career at that point.   Stone  captures the shanty rhythm in the line "a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge".  This creates contrast with the soprano (Sarah Fox) and her more esoteric text, and the refined choral section that follows, so when the baritone returns, the chorale-like structure in the movement is revealed. If anything, Stone is even more impressive in the second movement, "On the beach, at night, alone" where subtle nuance is of the essence. Manze's restraint in the second movement throws the Scherzo into high relief : pounding figures, wild, scurrying lines, swirling strings . While Brabbins brings out the colours of Debussy and Ravel in Vaughan Williams,  Manze is rewarding in the Elgarian moments,  especially in the final movement, The Explorers, which has elements of the transfiguration in The Dream of Gerontius.
 
The first part of the final movement is reverential, but as the pace speeds up, it comes thrillingly to life. "Oh we could wait no longer! " sings Stone. Stone and Fox complement each other : very well-balanced and articulate, harps, winds and violin adding further illumination.  When Stone sings "O soul thou pleasest me", the warmth in  his tone suggests genuine delight.  This is significant, given that the baritone and soprano may represent earthly and spirtual forces at last united in harmony.  Thus the outburst of ecstasy on "O Thou transcendant".  While A Sea Symphony is secular, it may stem from traditions older and deeper than the poetry of Walt Whitman.  One wonders what Vaughan Williams might have done with Solomon's Song of Songs as a work for solo voices.

Combining A Sea Symphony and The Lark Ascending on one disc makes musical sense, the violin (soloist James Ehnes) taking up where the violin left off in A Sea Symphony.  In marketing terms, the sheer popularity of The Lark Ascending would  be persuasive, especially for those relatively new to the works.Brabbins’s   pairing of A Sea Symphony with the more unusual  Darest thou now, O soul, will appeal to listeners with more advanced musical interests.  Though The Lark Ascending is so beautiful that it's almost impossible to spoil, truly exceptional performances are not that easy to come by.  Ehnes, Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra give a very good and satisying account.

Hugo Wolf Spanisches Liederbuch new CD

The classic recording of Hugo Wolf's Spanisches Liederbuch is the version with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, with Gerald Moore. This new recording, Vol. 7,  the latest in Stone Records' Complete Hugo Wolf series is a refreshing contrast. The soloists, with all respect, aren't in the league of DFD or Schwarzkopf but they offer a very different perspective.

Wolf's Spanisches Liederbuch is far less immediately popular than his Italienisches Liederbuch, but to Wolf aficionados it is valuable because it shows Wolf entering a new creative phase. The collection, in its full 44-song version, is an imaginary panorama of "Spanish" culture, filtered through the Austro-German sensibility of Wolf and the poets Paul Heyse and Emmanuel Geibel. The ten Geistliche Lieder, on religious themes, are available on Volume 6 of the Stone Records complete Wolf series. This new disc focuses on the Weltlisches Lieder, the 34 songs of worldly love. The songs don't form a narrative. They function more as a kaleidoscope of scenes evoking life in a warm, exotic climate where lovers in perfumed gardens play tambourines and exchange secret glances: highly charged passions veiled in mystery and allusion. The Spanisches Liederbuch is dramatic in a more sophisticated way than Wolf's opera Der Corregidor, which incorporates two of the songs in the set, Herz, versage nicht geschwind and In dem Schatten meiner Locken, one of the most ravishing pieces in the whole art song canon. .

The "South" seduced German poets much in the way that exotic, oriental locales fired their imaginations, offering alternatives to sober, rationale propriety. Wolf's Italienisches and Spanisches Liederbuchs are his West-ostlicher Divan. Wolf was not Viennese but came from Windischgratz in what is now Slovenia.  He longed for Italy, but when his friends arranged for him to visit, he had what seems like a panic attack and could not go. Richard Stokes, in his notes for this disc, describes Wolf's interest in Spain. "Alarcón's ironic and somewhat  acid style appealed to Wolf, whose own letters bristle with sardonic wit". Wolf writes local colour into the music, though fundamentally the tone is his own, not touristic. 

One of the great delights of this recording is Sholto Kynoch's playing   He's one of the best song pianists of his generation, and Music Director of Oxford Lieder, but here he excels. Listen to the fluidity which he brings to Klinge, klinge mein Pandero: the notes dance brightly, capturing the way a tambourine suddenly changes direction as its sides are turned. Such freedom, and such fun! And in Geh, Geliebter, geh jetzt! the piano sparkles with wild ecstasy, returning to earth so gently that it feels the song may never end.  Four voices feature - Birgid Steinberger, Anna Huntley, Benjamin Hulett and Marcus Farnsworth, instead of the usual soprano /baritone format. This exchange animates the performance, which was recorded live in the Holywell Music Room. The Spanisches Liederbuch, especially with the Geistliches Lieder, which anchor the secular songs are quite an undertaking, which is why the collection isn't performed very often, except by artists of the standing of Mathias Goerne and Christine Schäfer. Using four voices lessens the pressure, and gives inner momentum.  The singing is energetic, which suits the nature of these "worldly" songs.  . This disc is released both in hard copy and as download.  Visit Stone Records for more detail.

Barbican Britten Curlew River Bostridge review

Perhaps if I hadn't been looking forward so much to the Barbican Britten Curlew River, I would have been less disappointed. Tradition dictates that Curlew River should be done in a church because that's how it was first done in Britten's time. But what counts above all else is artistic merit.  If this had been a concert staging, in the Barbican Hall or Barbican Theatre, this Curlew River might have worked. St Giles Cripplegate is just all wrong for this. It's the wrong period, for one thing, its late Reformation and Puritan connections unsympathetic to the mysticism of the early Dark Ages fens, where being a Christian was something to be remarked upon. As a work of art, Curlew River is strong enough to make a powerful impact on its own terms, without needing a specific setting.

The physical constraints of St Giles don't make for good theatre. The nave became an extended stage,. Netia Jones's film projections were good, their monochrome starkness appropriate for the piece, but their impact was  spoiled because they could only be seen in full by the orchestra. Sightlines were blocked by pillars. The audience was crammed into the margins of the building. Perhaps one should not feel comfortable in Curlew River, but neither should the experience be penitential. Stages are usually horizontal for a very good reason. The Procession is important to the meaning of this piece,. Though the monks did walk down the nave,  they were kept busy changing their clothes while the Britten Sinfonia played. While the monks do become protagonists in the drama, this re-costuming is a clumsy misuse of space.

Fortunately, when Ian Bostridge started to sing, the drama at last began to kick in. The Madwoman is sneered at because, in her extreme grief, she has lost all conventional decorum. She''s an aristocrat but wanders alone in the wilds, wailing. Her speech is too "high born", too alien for the Fensmen. For me, this is critical to interpretation because the Madwoman is an outsider, a refined person of taste, driven to behave in extremes by the loss of her son, her pride and joy. Bostridge sings the part with all its contortions, fragments and wayward swoops, but does the staging show him trying to knit while he sits on the ferry?  She's no ordinary Mum. After the Madwoman hears the story of the Boy and his death, Bostridge's voice became firm, with almost demonic force. For all we know,  the Madwoman conjures up the vision of the Boy in her mind? Bostridge's purposeful singing suggests that she does have that kind of creative strength. Bostridge was  relatively restrained, considering what he could do with the part, given the right staging, but this bland directing was not the occasion. .No doubt the Madwoman finds peace hearing that the dead will rise. But why do the river people treat the Boy as a saint and giver of miracles?  The plaintive cry of the curlew recurs, suggesting primitive animist mysteries, and the "Japanese" cadences suggest alien worlds where western doctrine has no meaning. There is a lot more to Curlew River than straightforward Christianity.

Mark Stone sang the down-to earth Ferryman  and Neal Davies the Traveller, like the Madwoman, an outsider from places beyond. Gwynne Howell sang the Abbot, grown weary with experience, and Duncan Tarboton sang the Boy, as youthful as the Abbot is old.  William Lacey directed the Britten Sinfonia. Unfortunately, St Giles is perpendicular, so voices are funnelled upwards and muffled. Only Bostridge, right in the middle of the nave was fully audible. With a cast as good as this, it was a waste of good singers.

More thoughts : fomal ritual is central to the interpretation. In the original production Britten supervised, the ,monlks worte masks, the way Noh actors did.  It intensifies the surreal emotional distance so important to the piece. If Britten was writing "naturalistric" why then the use of Japanese form and cadences ? Why not simply writre it like Waly Waly ? Perhaps audiences prefer Britten minus his music.. It's sad that this anniversary years should be taught to disregard the music. If German directors tr8ed this, audiences would scream "Regie!"

More on Benjamin Britten on this site than only any other non specialist site. Please explore ! For Curlew River please read here and here. For Netia Jones please read here and here. (Knussen's Sendak operas, Jones's best work to date. This Curlew River,was an amateurish, superficial  Sunday School homily in comparison. See also the comment below. The Barbican should be professional enough to look after its customers properly.

Britten Canticles Plus - Stone Records

New from Stone Records, a recording of Benjamin Britten's Canticles. This release is  a valuable addition to the Britten discography because it resembles a concert given at Aldeburgh in 1956, entitled "The Heart of the Matter". At this stage, only three Canticles had been written, so the recital showcased Canticle III,  Still Falls the Rain, then a "new" work, written the previous year.Thus the recital included readings by Edith Sitwell herself, of other poems in her collection. For the occasion, Britten wrote extra music, which until now has rarely been heard.

The new recording begins with Canticle I (My beloved is  Mine) from 1947 and Canticle II (Abraham and Isaac) from 1952. Then we hear the Prologue Britten wrote for the 1956 recital, "Where are the seeds of the Universal Fire", followed by a reading of Sitwell's poem The earth of my heart was broken and gaped low. A short song follows, "We are the darkness in the heat of the day", then another reading before the highlight, Canticle III. A further reading "I see Christ's wounds weep in the Rose on the Wall" reinforces the imagery in Still Falls the Rain. The collection concludes with an Epilogue which Britten based on the verse "So out of the dark". The disc concludes with Canticles IV and V.

The three extra pieces Britten wrote for this set aren't particularly distinguished, more incidental music than music that might stand on its own, but we need to know them to enhance our understanding, particularly of the period in which Still Falls the Rain was set.  Of the five Canticles, it is the only one to a text by Sitwell.  It is a great pity, then, that the booklet notes don't tell us much about the context and read more like a generalized description of the Canticles, which are by no means a unified cycle. They were written over nearly 30 years, and, as  Roger Vignoles has written, they can be interpreted as distinct stages in the evolution of Britten's output. Vignoles's article, in Britten's Century (ed. Mark Bostridge) is so perceptive that it's worth the price of the book alone.  By making this recording, Stone Records has contributed greatly to our appreciation of Canticle III but the booklet notes are a lost opportunity to extend our knowledge of the background.

Performances are generally of a very high standard, as one would expect with soloists of the calibre of Richard Watkins and Hugh Webb, Roderick Williams, William Towers and Christopher Gould. But for Britten, the tenor voice dominates above all else. Daniel Norman is good enough, though some of Britten's more elaborate ululations are a challenge. But when we think back to 1956, we can hear the kind of innocence and simplicity that would have sounded well. Benjamin Maclean, the treble, is delightful.

Roger Quilter Shakespeare songs vol 1 Mark Stone

Roger Quilter's songs have special status in the canon of English music. Quilter (1877-1953) stands apart from the British music mainstream.He didn't have a choral or religious background. Independently wealthy, he trained in Germany, not in England. He found his niche in art song early, producing songs of graceful refinement, many of which are central to the English Song repertoire, and are frequently heard in recital and on recording. Until now, however, there has been no complete edition of his songs, so Mark Stone's latest series, The Complete Songs of Roger Quilter, is greatly welcomed.  Get it from Stone Records in hard copy or track by track HERE.

Quilter specialized in song, and set most of his songs to English poetry. In this first volume of this series of four,  Stone and his pianist Stephen Barlow focus on Quilter's settings of Shakespeare. Surprisingly, there are relatively few song settings of Shakespeare, given his status. Quilter set more Shakespeare than most composers. On this disc, we have Five Shakespeare Setting op 30, Three Shakespeare Songs op 6, Two Shakespeare Songs op 32, Five Shakespeare Songs op 23 and four individual settings. Quilter's choices include the extremely well known Come Away Death, Who is Sylvia, and Hark, Hark the Lark., and poems which have attracted few settings, like 'Tis St Valentine's Day.

Like Hugo Wolf, Quilter lets the poetry  shine with beautifully measured poise. Shakespeare's words in their natural language are so lovely that it's unwise to cloak them with excess verbiage. Quilter doesn't need to obfuscate. He gets straight to the point with delicate economy of gesture. Quilter's Hark, Hark the Lark soars to an ecstatic climax in 64 seconds, like an outburst of spontaneous joy, not unlike Wolf's Er Ist's.  Schubert's setting of the German translation, Horch, horch die Lerch, is exquisite, but it's more Schubert than Shakespeare.

Orpheus and his lute, being an anthem to music, has attracted many settings.  Quilter was an almost exact contemporary of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward German. In Quilter's setting the piano evokes the rich timbre of the lute, while German's version has a wilder sense of joy. Quilter was a generation older than Ivor Gurney and Gerald Finzi. Quilter's settings of Fear no more the heat of the sun  and It was a lover and his lass differ from RVW's and Finzi's, but all show how the same words can be used with different effects. It's also interesting to compare Quilter's When icicles hang on the wall with Thomas Arne's, 200 years before. Different times, different approaches.

Similarly, compare Quilter's I will go with my father a-ploughing with the setting by Ivor Gurney. Gurney was an outdoorsman, who responded to the poem with a setting evoking the joy of nature. Quilter's version is more circumspect, closer perhaps to the poet Joseph Campbell. Mark Stone includes in this disc Quilter's settings of Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson.  Sound sample below :

Milford, Duruflé Requiem Aeternam - Stone Records

At last, a recording of Robin Milford's Mass for Five Voices op 84 from Stone Records, specialists in British repertoire. Robin Milford (1903-1959) was Oxford born and bred, so it's fitting that this major new recording comes from the Choir of Somerville College, Oxford, conducted by David Crown. Milford would have been thrilled, though in his day, Somerville was all-female. While Somerville doesn't have the cachet of the bigger colleges, its singers are enthusiastic, and their committment infuses this recording with great character. 

Milford is best known for his music for small ensemble, like Fishing by Moonlight (op 96) issued by Hyperion nine years ago, so Stone Records' recording is an important development. Mass for Five Voices (1945-7) was originally titled "Mass for Christmas Morning" but there's nothing specially Christmassy about it other than a general sense of joy. "I'm so glad that you enjoyed my Mass", wrote the composer to a friend, "for I consider it the best thing I've ever done, and I'm very pleased indeed that you felt the work was 'truly religious' rather than 'churchy'" . The voices are SATB choir with organ, so the resemblance to church tradition is clear, but Milford's approach is ecstatic. In Gloria in excelsis, the voices shine. "Miserere nobis" hardly seems relevant, a final "Gloria in excelsis" reaffirms the celebratory.mood.  Even the solemnity of the Credo reflects joy, and when the organ joins in, it's as if it were singing, not preaching.

The Somerville voices sound so fresh and pure that one can understand why Milford thought of Christmas and presumably angels and happiness. There's nothing trite about this. Milford's life was plagued by tragedy, including the sudden death of his 5 year old son.  He had breakdowns, received ECT and attempted suicide, and finally ended his life with an overdose.  Even in our modern, more tolerant times, such things are painful. In Milford's era of repressed Stiff Upper Lip, he must have suffered. So the joy in Mass for Five Voices shines all the more when we reflect from whence it came.

The Somerville College Choir are joined by soloists Christine Rice and Mark Stone for Maurice Duruflé's Requiem op 9 (1947). making this recording of interest even in a crowded market. Rice and Gilchrist communicate sincerity. Duruflé's Requiem is duly famous, and its use of  monastic chant sources give it timeless grandeur. Yet, as James Percval writes, "in the light of the socially-traumatic experience of World Wars", Duruflés Requiem "very much belongs to the twentieth century". Listen to Christine Rice in this Pie Jesu, the stillness in her voice garlanded by cello (Guy Johnston) and organ (Tristan Mitchard). A protracted single organ announces the Libera me. When Stone sings "tremens factus sum ego", he sings with such directness that his words feel personal and heartfelt. This Requiem was recorded in the chapel at Douai Abbey, where the acoustic favours intimacy.

Duruflé's Requiem and Milford's Mass for Five Voices were written in the same post-war period., but are, of course very different. But heard together, we can appreciate the humanity they have in common. This recording is a milestone for Milford, but also a showcase for the Oxford college choir tradition, created afresh by the Somerville College Choir. It seems odd to call a CD of Masses a "hit", but this one is ! For more details, please see the Stone Records site HERE.

Stone Records : C W Orr Song book vol 2

C W Orr isn't unknown. More than ten years ago, Hyperion issued a 2 CD set of songs based on A E Housman's poems from A Shropshire Lad  with settings by Butterworth, Moeran, John Ireland and five by C W Orr. The late Anthony Rolfe Johnson sang and Alan Bates recited. Mark Stone has put a lot of research into this new complete Orr series, uncovering songs and biographical details about the composer, not readily available. Stone Records Complete C W Orr Songbook vols 1 and 2 fill a significant gap in the discography of British music.

Stone Records has made a major contribution to the music of Frederick Delius, recording Delius's complete songs and his music for piano and small ensemble. Hence the C W Orr set, for Orr owed his career to Delius. Orr himself was something of an anomaly. The posthumous son of an officer in the late Victorian  Raj, he seems to have had a very sheltered life in Gloucestershire.  Much has been made oif his fondness for German Lieder, which was hardly unusual at the time, even in England. But the influence is frankly hard to detect in his music, which owes as much to late Victorian song and to British composers a generation older than Orr himself.  Delius learned from Grieg and the European mainstream of his own time.  Orr, on the other hand, seems to have immersed himself in a form of Englishness that Delius eschewed. Delius lived in France. Orr, uncommonly attached to his mother and later responsible for her female companion, spent most of his life in the Cotswolds, mainly in Painswick. His only other musical influence seems to have been Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine), who died in 1930. This  biographical background is important because it sets Orr's music into context.

Some of the songs on this second volume of Orr's songs date from as late as 1959, but stylistically they could have been written more than fifty years earlier. Don't even venture Benjamin Britten, Gerald Finzi or Ralph Vaughan Williams. Perhaps this explains Orr's identification with A E Housman, a favourite of composers before the First World War. One of the better songs in this volume is Housman's 1887 where the poet writes of soldiers dying in the service of Empire in far-flung colonies. The fate of Orr's father is pertinent. Housman contrasted Queen Victoria's 50th Jubilee with the loss of healthy young men. Orr however sets the poem in a straightforwardly heroic style, missing Hiusman's darker subtext altogether. He quite likely wasn't even aware of the homoerotic undercurrents in Housman's work, which gives it such distinctive emotional character. The song dates from 1937. It's almost cheerfully lilting and insouciant, with a jolly final flourish. One wonders what George Butterworth would have made of this poem. Read about Mark Stone's excellent George Butterworth Songbook.

Even had Orr, who died  as recently as 1976, belonged to his parents' generation, one wonders if he'd have made an impact in comparison with masters like Vaughan Williams and  Butterworth. Their settings of Housman poems are masterpieces. Orr's style depends on heavy, workmanlike word painting rather tham musical inspiration. The phrasing is often stilted, forcing a naturally mellifluous voice like Mark Stone's into awkward corners and sudden contortions. Simon Lepper is fortunate because the piano parts are written in a prosaic, even unsubtle way that makes no great demands.  Nontheless Stone Records has made a major contribution to British music by recording Orr's work. Stone's trademark is meticulously well prepared professionalism, giving all the composers they record as high quality as possible presentation.  The Stone Records Havergal Brian Songbook is wonderful beecause it makes a very strong case for Brian's quirky individuality. It's a genuinely lovable recording. (read more here).

Orr is far less original than Havergal Brian, so don't expect the same delights. But Stone Records makes the best possible case for him, and that is a service to British music.

Hugo Wolf Complete Songs vol 4 Stone Records

This latest release in Stone Records' Hugo Wolf Complete Song series fills a valuable niche in the market. Wolf's early and lesser-known songs, some written when he was only 15, are spread out all over the discography and take some tracking down. Here, they are gathered together in a convenient group, with more to follow, since Wolf wrote 88 extant songs before his breakthrough with Mörike. Since the disc also includes songs Wolf wrote towards the end of his artistic life, it shows insight into his creative processes

Because these songs aren't well known, it's important to hear them in context. Richard Stokes's programme notes are superlative. His knowledge of the background is encyclopaedic. He's analytical, and draws well-judged comparisons with other composers, citing specific works, some known mainly to specialists, but does so in a style that general readers might be spurred on to explore further. This is what intelligent music writing should be about. Anyone seriously interested in Wolf will need this disc, but Stokes's notes are worth the price alone.

Although most of these songs date from Wolf's youth, "none of them is insignificant", writes Stokes, and explains why. Even in his teens, Wolf was well read, experimenting with different poets as if he were learning to hear the "music" that made each poet unique. Wolf sets Chamisso, Hebbel, Körner and Rückert and poets whose names are obscure today, some even anonymous. In Körner's "Ständchen" (early 1877) Wolf observes the hesitant changes of mood perhaps more pointedly than the poet does. The flow may not be conventional, but it's emotionally sensitive.

Wolf was also well informed about other composers. Beethoven's setting of Freidrich von Matthison's "Andenken" is exceptional, but Wolf finds interesting things to say himself, particularly in the piano line. Wolf revered Schumann but even at this age was wary of imitation. "Whereas Schumann composed a chorale-like setting with close harmonies", writes Stokes, Wolf's setting of Rückert's "So wahr die Sonne scheinet" (February 1878)  is "altogether more euphoric". Wolf's an exuberant teenager, while Schumann was reverently writing for, and with, Clara, after a long, troubled engagement. Wolf is learning originality. Later in life he didn't set poems unless he felt he had something personal to say.

With the settings of poems by Hoffman von Fallersleben, signs of Wolf's mature style emerge. The poems aren't subtle, but this gives Wolf the freedom to dash them off in rapid succession as the excitement inspires him. "Auf der Wanderung" bursts with joie de vivre. The vocal line surges, the piano part cheerful. This is a song for a young man who has open roads and open skies ahead of him.  "Ja, die Schönst! ich sag es offen!".begins with a vaguely Schumannesque prelude for the piano, but is very un-Schumann-like in its confidence.

The disc then moves on to June 1890, after the Mörike,  Goethe and Eichendorff songs and the Spanisches Liederbuch. Wolf laboured with "Alte Weisen, Sechs Gedichte von Keller". Even Frank Walker says "Only 'Wie glänztder helle Mond' is wholly worthy of Wolf's genius", but that's only comparative. In these songs, we can hear glimpses of what was to come in the autumn and early winter: The Italienisches Liederbuch. There are also echoes of the Spanish Liederbook  in the droll character vignettes. Wolf's Keller settings are interesting as they fill the relative doldrums betwen the intensity generated by the two great masterpieces. Interestingly, Othmar Schoek, who revered Wolf, went on to set many of Keller's poems. This sketch of Keller was done by Arnold Böcklin in 1889.

The following year, Wolf planned to write incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play "Das Fest auf Solhaug". Perhaps the translation didn't sing to him,. "Damnred little poetry", he wrote "I wonder where I shall get the plaster from to clothe in music this home -made carpentry". Yet, as pure music, Wolf's songs, espeially the lovely "Gesang Margits" are beautifully expressive. Did Wolf know Grieg's Solvieg's Song (1876)? Like Wolf's other ventures into opera and music theatre, the parts may be greater than the whole.

The soloists on this recording are Mary Bevan and Quirijn de Lang, and the pianist is Sholto Kynoch.  Since the explosion of Wolf recordings after the 2003 centenary of his death, the market is flooded  but this disc is unique because of the material. Stone Records' series Hugo Wolf : the Complete Songs is shaping up well, and this disc in particular is a valuable contribution to Wolf studies. Buy it here.

Havergal Brian Songbook - surprise delight!

What is the appeal of Havergal Brian? He draws extreme opinion. Friends of mine admired him greatly, so I listened with respect, always assuming that one day, a perfect performance would make Brian work for me as it did for them. Please read more here and do the exclusive Havergal Brian crossword !

Mark Stone and Sholto Kynoch have now made a superb recording of Havergal Brian's songs, first part of a series which will be the Complete Havergal Brian Songbook. At last, Havergal Brian works for me!

This could be a cult favourite, because it's very enjoyable indeed. I've played it over and over with pleasure. Stone's elegant, dignified poise and Kynoch's lyrical playing make the best possible case for Havergal Brian piano song. There are also short works for solo piano and piano and violin (Jonathan Stone). The booklet is informative, with the high quality presentation that Stone Records is noted for. Havergal Brian could not have dreamed of anything as stylish as this.

But remember Brian's Symphony no 1 (the "Gothic") at the Proms last year? At the Royal Albert Hall, it was a magnificent theatrical experience, conducted with finesse by Martyn Brabbins. I listened with awe to the performance and the sheer audacity of Brian's vision. (read more here). But as music, the Gothic is decidedly odd.  Brian's fifteen minutes of international fame very nearly killed his reputation. So why does Brian have such a devoted following? The Havergal Brian website (HERE) is a labour of altruistic love, so comprehensive that anyone could become an instant expert without actually hearing the work. Perhaps Brian is endearing because he goes where other composers fear to tread. Perhaps it's the Great British Eccentric tradition, which honours those who Try Very Hard.

When the works on this recording were made, the heavy hand of worthy Victorian earnestness still  haunted British song. Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the brilliant exceptions, rather than the norm.  Don't listen to Brian and think in terms of RVW, Butterworth or Gurney, but rather to the social context of song in the period, which owes as much to parlour song and hymnal as to ersatz pastoralism.  Think Granville Bantock, Peter Warlock or C W Orr, whom Stone Records has honoured in a recent recordng. which Andrew Clements admired  I'm less convinced, perhaps from having toiled too long in the lesser recesses of English song. But we need to know those valleys, if only to appreciate the peaks. That's why Stone Records' traverse of English song is so important.

The songs of Havergal Brian appeal to me because they're so unself consciously self conscious.  Brian aims high, setting John Donne, Yeats and Shakespeare. The message (begun on Stoke Station) follows Donne's poem so literally it's almost parody, but a delight, nonetheless. Listen to the wind blow-o-o-ow in When icicles hang by the wall (Shakespeare)  Care-charmer sleep (to a poem by 16th century Samuel Daniel) set by Brian while insomniac combines "soporific rocking and discordant  dreams". When Brian sets lesser poets, like his landlord, Christopher Masterman Masterman (not a typo), his stolid approach reflects the poem only too well. The Soul of Steel is melodramatic, the piano part as strident as the vocal declamation.  Get the CD for this song alone. It's delicious, precisely because it's so stubbornly unsophisticated. The essence of Brian's charm.  Stone and Kynoch perform with utter conviction, which makes us respect Brian, all the more. He was an ordinary man who dreamed big. Some of these pieces are good enough to be part of a mixed recital. You could hear a lot worse than Havergal Brian.

Think of the Charles Kingsley (The Water Babies) poem The Lost Doll, included on this genuinely recommended disc.

"I once had a sweet little doll, dears, The prettiest doll in the world; Her cheeks were so red and white, dears, And her hair was so charmingly curled. But I lost my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day; And I cried for her more than a week, dears, But I never could find where she lay."

" I found my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day; Folks say she is horriibly changed, dears, For her paint is all washed away, And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears, And her hair not the least bit curled; Yet for old times sakes, she is still, dears, The prettiest doll in the world."

Havergal Brian - the crossword!

Wonderful idea ! EXCLUSIVE crossword puzzle designed by John Grimshaw, Crosswords setter for The Times, and President of the Havergal Brian Society, in honour of the new Havergal Brian Songbook series from Stone Records. Access it here and have a go, it's great fun . Fairly easy answers, but deviously clever clues, the sign of a good crossword! Winner will get a choice of five CDs from the Stone Records catalogue, which is good and eclectic. Several of my friends were Havergal Brian devotees (including the late Bob Ziedler (died 2005), who was one of Amazon's top reviewers in the days when Amazon reviews were properly written).

So I learned my Brian from interesting people. Hence big respect, even though I didn't "get" the music as they did. The Havergal Brian Society's web page is a great resource because it's compiled as a labour of love. In itself, that says a lot about the Havergal Brian Brotherhood. Their enthusiasm inspires. You could become an instant Brian expert overnight by quoting from the site. But that misses the point, I think, because the appeal of Brian is far more esoteric.  I like quirky, unorthodox peoiple, so I like Brian and his devotees, the real ones that is. Yoiu can't fake originality!  Currently I am enjoying the first CD in Stone Records Complete Havergal Brian Songbook. link here,  I was a bit askance at first, having listened in mixed awe and horror to Brian's grand Gothic symphony at the Proms last year (read more here). But almost isntantly I was hooked. It's great listening. Some of the songs are good, some god-awful, but they're delivered with such aplomb that you're drawn into the spirit. That's why Havergal Brian appeals. It's delicious, in the grand British Eccentric tradition. If you like Gerald Hoffnung and dry British humour, you'll love this. I'll write more about the CD later as it's definitely recommended.

PS the pianist on the CD, Sholto Kynoch, is one of the best song pianists around. He's so good, he lifts Brian's style and makes it sing. Hear him with the Phoenix Piano Trio on May 13 at the Wigmore Hall. 

Delius Complete Songbook 2 Mark Stone

"English music? I don't know what that is", Delius said to Eric Fenby, who very nearly aborted his self-appointed mission to help the composer. But Delius was right. Music is rarely "nationalist"and Delius himself was international.  Mark Stone's recording of the Complete Delius Songbook series is a valuable contribution to Delius studies as it includes perfomances of lesser known works and new translations, many by Stone himself.

Listen to the first volume in this series, which I reviewed HERE, where Stone and pianist Stephen Barlow perform Delius's earliest songs. Grieg's music expressed an aesthetic significantly outside the European mainstream.  The purity of Norwegian landscape was a metaphor for independence and creative renewal. Delius learned from Grieg not merely the trappings of "Scandinavian" culture, but the concept of individuality.  In this second volume in the series, Delius sets Danish, French and German poets, but the style is his own.

Included in this new disc is a piano song version of the Nietzsche setting, Noch ein mal, O Mensch, Gib acht!, which in 1904/5 became part of Delius's A Mass for Life.  A version for solo voice, chorus and orchestra was written six years before the song but the version here was found among the composr's papers after his death. It's undated, but possibly predates both other forms. Jelka Delius said it was the earliest version of all. The melodic line is already clear, surprising calm, unlike Mahler's more intense setting in his Symphony no 3. Mark Stone's deep baritone gives gravity.

Delius wrote four more Nietzsche songs around 1898, possibly sketches for large scale works, though they were published decades later as independent songs.  Stylistically they connect to A Mass for Life, but they're much stronger musically. Each is a miniature, yet powerfully felt. Although the subject matter is completely different to A Village Romeo and Juliet, completed in 1899, perhaps Delius is thinking in terms of dramatic, declamatory song? Certainly Stone's delivery suggests this. He's an opera singer and brings to these songs much more colour than some of the other songs on this disc can support. The five settings of poems by Verlaine depend more on heavy pedal rather than elegance.

Delius is more in his own element, if that's defined by watercolour lightness of touch in the paler tones of the other songs in this collection.  Two groups of songs from the Danish, eleven early songs and other individual pieces. With Autumn, Dreamy Nights, Summer Nights on the sea shore and Summer Landscape we're in that quiet, watchful mood that Delius so often evokes. It's as if time is standing still as the composer meditates on the moment. Below is Silken Shoes, an "expression" as Mark Stone says in his erudite programme notes "of the exquisite...nature of the beloved. Delius uses rising triplets throughout to underline the triumphant nature of this song...and comes to a warm, satisfied ending". Buy the recording DIRECT from Stone Records, or thru the usual sources.

Complete Delius Songbook part 1 Mark Stone

Frederick Delius spent most of his adult life outside Britain. His influences were European rather than parochially English. His parents were German, and he was a native German speaker. Culturally he was a citizen of the world. What, then, makes Delius an “English composer”?

The Complete Delius Songbook is another ambitious project from small, independent company Stone Records, who gave us the first George Butterworth Songbook (see review HERE) and the new Hugo Wolf Mörike Songbook. (review HERE). Such enterprise deserves respect. This disc is the first in a two-part series which will include songs published only in the last few years, and some in new singing translations.

Unlike many British composers, Delius used non-English texts extensively. He was, of course, a native German speaker and learned enough Norwegian to socialize and attend plays. Indeed, of the 61 Delius songs for voice and piano that survive, many are settings of Norwegian poetry. Delius was close to Edvard Grieg, so would have been acutely aware of Grieg’s settings of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, and indeed of alternative settings of the same poems by Emil Sjögren, Halfdan Kjerulf and others.

Bjørnson was a contemporary of Grieg and Ibsen, one of the great figures whose championship of Norwegian values and language created a distinct Norwegian identity, making way for eventual independence. He wasn't an antique figurehead, and certainly no bucolic rustic. Even Ole Bull, from whom Grieg learned so much, was far more than a country fiddler.

Delius learned to write original music with the spirit of purity inherent in folk music, rather than transcribing traditional singers as Percy Grainger did. Hence, the charm of Delius's Seven Songs from the Norwegian (RT V9) lies in their utter simplicity. Grieg sets the same poems with much greater subtlety, the piano part deliciously pristine.  On this disc, Mark Stone sings "Twilight Fancies" or "The Princess looks forth from her maiden bower" with utter sincerity, so when his voice reaches a crescendo on the word "soar", it's a nice contrast with the understatement elsewhere. Stephen Barlow, the pianist, is appropriately discreet and restrained.

Delius settings are "modern" in the sense that they evoke the spirit of Jugendstil or the Art and Crafts  Movement. They are totally of their time. This CD also includes the even earlier and sparer Five Songs from the Norwegian RT V/5 and The Eleven Early Songs - Norwegian (RT V/2). 

Delius's grounding in this pure aesthetic extends to his settings of English verse. Shakespeare's It was a lover and his lass has been set so many times that it's almost become a cliché for quaint folksiness. Nowadays, it would take guts to set "a hey and aho and a hey nonino". Similarly, it would be hard to avoid twee in "cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, too wittawoo" as in the Thomas Nash setting. But Delius writing during the First World War would have had quite different connotations. Stone and Barlow deliver without affectation.

Delius doesn't have the melodic gift of  Ralph Vaughan Williams or Gerald Finzi''s affinity with Tudor and Stuart poets, but his approach is sincere - "Arts and Crafts"  honesty. Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry, however, doesn't naturally lend itself to simplicity. Delius's Three Songs  RT V/12 (1891) to Shelley are more conventionally "Victorian".  In Love's Philosophy, Barlow shapes the elaborate piano part which lets Stone's voice emerge at the critical moment, "if thou kisst not me?".  These songs are more "polished", like sophisticated parlour songs, but Delius's earlier purity is more distinctively individual. 

Garsington Opera 2011

Garsington Opera starts its first season at Wormsley Park in grand style. Mozart The Magic Flute in a new Engluish translation by Jeremy Sams - bound to be pacy! Sure to please. Then, Rossini Il Turco en Italia conducted by Garsington's regular specialist maestro David Parry. Mark Stone sings. And for those who know another great Garsington tradition, an obscurity, Vivaldi La verità in cimento (Truth by ordeal) "a dotty story", goes the press release, about a King who switches babies born to his wife and mistress. It's the very dottiness that makes Vivaldi operas work, they're too cheerful to be serious. Please read the story in Opera Today.

La forza del destino - Opera Holland Park

Opera Holland Park proves, with this ambitious Verdi La forza del destino, that it can punch way above its weight. The secret? Better than average singers, better than average staging. This is a production that could be adapted for a bigger house and still stun.

It's not the easiest opera to stage. The plot verges on melodrama, so singers need to act well to convince. Much of the drama grows from context, too. All those peasants, soldiers, beggars, monks and priests give a wider dimension to the tragedy. The Vargas family of Calatrava are destroyed because they're obsessed by class and status. All around them, society is ripped apart by war and famine. Only the Church offers stability - or does it? Verdi shows the Church isn't a sanctuary.

It's a narrative that might call for widescreen excess. Opera Holland Park doesn't have such resources, but has found a solution in simplicity. In the Overture, the chorus stand before the audience, face to face. No action needed, the implication is obvious. We're invited to view the mass as individuals, each with their own private drama.

Such a panoramic opera could descend into chaos if badly put together. Fortunately, Alison Chitty is one of the most experienced designers in the country, who created Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House. Her set for La forza del destino focuses on the cast, not the scenery. Black backcloth to hide the remains of Holland Park House. Palace, town, battlefield, church, fundamentally the same thing. It's the human drama that counts.

Neat rows of chairs indicate a church. Splattered with red, hanging at awry angles, the chairs depict the chaos of war, order overturned. Minimal effects, maximum impact. These humble chairs function as a silent, secondary chorus, providing discreet support.

Singing, too, was of a higher order.  Gweneth Ann Jeffers deserves far more attention than she gets in this country. Her voice is rich, with a wide range, and capable of great expressive depth. At the inn, she appears unobtrusively from a far corner, dressed as a man, but the moment she sings, she's unmistakable, singing of a higher order than anyone else. Her Pace, pace mio Dio is specially moving, which she phrases carefully, colouring subtle shifts of emotion.  Singers of Jeffers' quality deserve to be polished, like gemstones. She needs good management. If she's properly pushed, it will pay off. She has the potential to be a star.

Although I've heard Mark Stone in recital and in smaller roles at the Royal Opera House, this was the first time I've heard him in a role as substantial as Don Carlo.  He's even better as opera singer than recitalist, because he projects so well, and has commanding stage presence. Stone's Don Carlo is a natural aristocrat. You know immediately that he's not Pereda of Salamanca - no meek student would sing with such authority! An elegant voice, which Stone uses well to evoke the more driven aspects of the character. Don Carlo's so maddened with hate that he'll kill his own sister if it's the last thing he does.

Peter Auty is perhaps the most experienced of these principals, but is less convincing as Don Alvaro. A few strained notes are acceptable, but unlucky pacing meant that he ran dry towards the end of long passages.Of course, he's been wounded in Act 2 but this is theatre, not reality. He should be able to match if not outclass Don Carlo, since he's supposed to be such a hunk that Leonora chose him above her family, class and homeland.. Here, though, there wasn't much romantic chemistry.

Carole Wilson's Preciosilla was sassy and intelligent, not stock-gypsy slut. She made the part a parallel to Leonora, for both women are strong willed and passionate. When Wilson sings the fiery Rataplan, Rataplan, it feels like she's inciting the chorus to riot.  They respond with such gusto that it feels like revolution. Mikhail Svetlov's Padre Guardiano doesn't seem too discomforted, but I suspect Verdi's sympathies lay with the crowd.

The lesser parts in OHP's La forza impressed, too. If only Graeme Broadbent's interesting Marquis wasn't killed off so soon. Aled Hall's Trabucco is racier than Don Alvaro, and Donald Maxwell's Fra Melitone mellow toned, for a bass baritone.

For a long opera, this didn't drag. The direction (Martin Duncan) was firm, though I wish the gunshot that felled the Marquis had been audible. Later gunshots were, so perhaps this was mechanical failure. As my friend observed, without this first gunshot, the whole premise of the opera doesn't make sense.  Some very good moments, though. The procession emerges from the passageway among the audience. Cross held high, very dramatic. Just as everyone carries a burden in this opera and dies, so did Jesus.

Even more impressive is the way Duncan creates the transition between the merry scene with the vivandières and the scene with the starving peasants. It takes just minutes, for all the chorus do is discard their colourful outer robes. But it marks a major reversal of fortune, "the force of destiny".

Though the chorus in this opera is large, it's extremely well choreographed by Paul Kitson. The singers move in tightly defined groups, very precisely blocked. Many small vignettes, like the lovers, but nothing to dissipate from the main focus (unlike the ENO style described before)  Complex interactions, but so well executed everything flows smoothly. At one point, Padre Guardiano's cloak almost gets snagged on some furniture, but a chorus member spots it and pulls it free so the singer doesn't trip. Quick thinking!

Opera Holland Park is a fun experience, though the performances don't generally overwhelm. This La Forza del destino was in a much higher league though, definitely way above average. So good, in fact, that it should be revived even in an established theatre. Sadler's Wells? The Barbican? It deserves to be heard.

Gweneth Ann Jeffers and Mark Stone

Gweneth Ann Jeffers and Mark Stone star in Verdi La forza del destino  at Opera Holland Park. Word has got round that this will be an above average performance, so the few seats left last week have disappeared.

Regular readers on this site will know how highly I rate young singers. I've been following Gweneth Ann Jeffers and Mark Stone. Good luck to them both!  They've both got potential and deserve support.

Please read here about Jeffers singing Messiaen Harawi and Poemes pour mi. Singing Messiaen is a brave speciality. Messiaen's style is unique. A voice with great range and expressive colour is needed, but above all an intuitive feel for the wayward alien quality of Messiaen's music. Jeffers has genuine musical intelligence, which is very special. In comparison, other things are almost "easy". She has a vivid personality, too, and a solid background in musicianship to build on.  Lots of experience, too. Read more about her HERE. 

Read about Mark Stone's recording of George Butterworth Songs, which was well researched. Stone Records is a good quality independent enterprise, which I have a lot of respect for. (They do Messiaen, too.)  The main focus of Mark Stone's career, though, is mainstream opera. He's appeared several times at the Royal Opera House. He has a well balanced warm voice and the stage presence to go with it.  Read more about him HERE. (photo credit Robert Workman)

A jonquil, not a Grecian lad : George Butterworth Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams sings George Butterworth. This new recording, English Song Series 20: Songs From a Shropshire Lad, is the finest ever. It's a landmark, even by his high standards.

It's no secret that I've adored Williams for years, not all that long after he was still appearing with a map of Africa  shaved into his hair. Now he's easily the most important exponent of English Song. Hyperbole, perhaps, but Williams really is special, and one of the greatest specialists in English music. (hear him at 3 choirs).

English song has suffered from extra-musical affectation, smothered by "cowpat". Hence fake bucolic pretentiousness, fey preciousness, ghettoizing the genre. But the best of English song is so good it doesn't need stylistic coating. Roderick Williams's approach is direct, unfussy, revealing the true artistic merits of what he sings.

George Butterworth is one of my great passions, (please see other posts on this site including THIS.) . I've heard many performances, but  this new CD includes  the finest version of Songs From a Shropshire Lad I have ever heard. Listen to the clarity. and vividness. It feels like you're in a one to one conversation. Because Williams's style is unmannered, there are no barriers, it's personal. And what a voice - naturally warm, very secure in the middle register which Butterworth favours.

"A jonquil not a Grecian lad". Often the third song in Butterworth's cycle is overshadowed by more popular songs like The Lads in Their Hundreds, but Williams understand that it isn't necessarily the big, "public" moments that make the cycle, but  the elusive intimacy.  

Look not in my Eyes refers to Narcissus who was so beautiful everyone lusted for him. But his purity was preserved when the Gods turned him into a delicate flower. Butterworth sets the poem with curving sensuousness, but it's the purity that really counts. Williams emphasizes the word "jonquil" simply by respecting the microseconds of silence that set the word apart from the rest of the sentence, colouring the word itself with a reverent sense of wonder. An amazing moment.

Grecian lads die or are corrupted, but flowers bloom again each Spring. AE Housman didn't actually spend much time in Shropshire, and Butterworth was a terse, repressed  Londoner for whom the idea of unspoiled nature meant more than reality. Don't be seduced by verdant trappings. These songs are about a lot more than the countryside. Roderick Williams and his pianist Ian Burnside access the deeper levels in these songs, revealing their true beauty.

Williams doesn't make the opening arc in Loveliest of Trees dominate,  but shows how the arc repeats throughout: "wearing white...for Eastertide". Purity is of the essence. Too much heat makes blossoms wilt before their time.  Williams breathes gently into words, just enough warmth to bring out their fragrance.

The flowers are beautiful, but they're also a metaphor for the passing of time, which hangs over the whole cycle. The lads in their hundreds are partying, but soon will die, as Butterworth did, aged only 30, in battle. The dead farmer talks to his friend who has already taken up with the dead man's girlfriend. When I was one and twenty is a play on youth and age. The poet talks like he's old, but only a year has gone by.

Time hangs heavily too on Butterworth's Bredon Hill and Other Songs from a Shropshire Lad.  Butterworth's setting  seems more straightforward than Ralph Vaughan Williams's, but Butterworth's exists only as piano song, without the extra instrumentation that makes RVW's versions soar.  RVW created his cycle after his musical breakthrough, working with Ravel. Butterworth, thirteen years younger, never had the chance.

Williams and Burnside make a case for Butterworth's cycle. Listen to When the Lad for Longing sighs. Butterworth's minor key is so eerie that it wavers almost towards the pentatonic. Then, On the Idle Hill of Summer, the main phrase curving up and down. The song operates on several levels. Languid summer on the surface, but undercut by images of war and death.  "East and west on fields forgotten, bleach the bones of comrades slain". It's not a dreamy day in the Cotswolds.

Williams shapes the odd, unsettling phrase archly, so the curves are almost sinister. Butterworth was fascinated by the potential in this piece, creating the orchestral miniature that's so well known.  He didn't know that he'd end up dead on the Somme, but we do. Williams sing with poignant dignity.

More rarities - the second recording of Folk Songs from Sussex and the little known Requiescat.  The pioneer recording, by Mark Stone, was made in November 2009. It must have spurred Naxos into action, as Williams's recording was made in  January 2010. Stone is good and deserves credit. In any case, Butterworth fans need both recordings, as Stone's includes rare video footage.  Besides, Stone's own label is independent and worth supporting (read about another very good recording on the label  HERE)  Needless to say, Naxos's sleeve notes are useless and misleading, while Stone's are very good indeed. If I praise Roderick Williams, that doesn't diminish Mark Stone, Williams is just unbeatable in this genre, by anyone..

Nonetheless, Roderick Williams is infinitely more experienced, and his insight is unsurpassed. The Sussex Songs are simple, but Williams gives them such character that you wonder why they've remained unrecorded for so long (they've been sitting in the archives for years, and have been published by Stainer and Bell).

Folk songs these are but Butterworth isn't "folksy". Williams' s singing is crisp, energetic, direct, matching the jaunty rhythms. Seventeen Come Sunday has complicated nonsense phrases which Williams enunciates nimbly. He even manages to mimic the old Sussex rural accent when it helps colour the songs. The flirtatious girl, who salaciously sings "Roving in the dew makes the milkmaids fair". In Tarry Trousers, Williams sings both mother and daughter! The accents aren't overdone. Williams sings the pompous young man in Yonder stands a lovely creature, then the girl's biting putdown: simple, crisp semi-staccato. These songs came from Sussex, but the people they depict could be anywhere, even today.  Unbelievably good sound quality, too - the slight echo in Requiescat may or may not have been deliberate, but it's suitably spooky.

photo credit Tina Manthorpe

Mark Stone recording - George Butterworth

Mark Stone is a "rising star" on the song and opera circuit - he's currently The English Gentleman in Prokofiev The Gambler at the Royal Opera House for example. As you can see from this photo, he's got presence! He also runs his own recording company Stone Records. Latest release in a good series is The Complete George Butterworth Songbook. This really is the first complete recording of Butterworth's songs, which makes this CD a must for anyone into English song, as well as for anyone who likes Stone's elegant baritone.

Ralph Vaughan Williams may be the big name in English music, but without George Butterworth, there might not have been RVW, at least not as we know him now. They were friends in English folk music circles, but it was Butterworth who pushed RVW to write symphonies.

In fact RVW's 2nd Symphony, "London" is dedicated to Butterworth who was instrumental in pushing RVW to write it. Butterworth himself was eclipsed because he burned all his unpublished work when he went to war in 1914. Mysteriously, he told no-one in the army that he was a composer.  A fascinating story - what went on in the mind of that repressed, brooding figure? When Butterworth was at Oxford, a don is supposed to have remarked, "There goes more Red Revolution than in all Russia" - this after the 1905 uprisings!

That's why Butterworth's songs are interesting. They're not as sophisticated as the lovely orchestral piece, Banks of Green Willow, Butterworth's best known work, but they reveal a more personal, contemplative side to the composer.

The two best known cycles, A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill are to poems by A E Housman. Housman was also fascinated by a mythical English past, populated by hunky yeomen doing manly things in pastoral landscapes. On a deeper level. though, they deal with Housman's inner issues, so they're quite modern in many ways. Housman's protagonists often reveal their vulnerable, naked necks: a metaphor perhaps. Because both Vaughan Williams and Butterworth set the same poems at the same time, it's easy to compare their different approaches. RVW's versions are freer and more lyrical, which is why they're such masterpieces. Butterworth's are very good, and perhaps more thoughtful, as if the composer has sensed that he might have more to say when he's more mature. Except that Butterworth neve did mature. He stopped writing when he became a soldier. Had he survived, what might have emerged from his creative hiatus?

Butterworth's Bredon Hill is observant, the "noisy bells" pealing in circular patterns, warning the young couple that they can't escape. Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow realize that what makes Butterworth is sincerity: more restrained and introspective than RVW but assertive. In On the Idle Hill of Summer, Butterworth creates a very subtle strangeness, where the line wavers, the way summer haze blurs firm boundaries. Stone's clarity blends well with the delicacy of Barlow's playing.

What makes this recording important, though, is because it includes rarities, even Requiescat, a miniature based on Oscar Wilde juvenilia which Butterworth makes surprisingly touching. The cycle, Love Blows as the Wind Blows, is to poems by William Ernest Henley. R L Stevenson based Long John Silver on Henley, who had one leg and a big personality, though he wasn't a pirate. Christopher Maltman and Roderick Williams have this in their repertoire, but recordings are hard to come by. Stone's voice is more flexible than Jonathan Lemalu's, so Stone's performance is more nuanced.

The Eleven Folk Songs from Sussex were based on real folk songs "collected from the wild" so to speak. Butterworth assiduously collected folk song and dance because he wanted to preserve what was left of pre-industrial popular culture. His settings are probably faithful to the originals, but they're art song, too. Folk tradition isn't fixed, but changes and grows, as Butterworth knew. There's a nice clip of Stone singing A Lawyer he went out on his website HERE. It can't have been lost on a man as sensitive as Butterworth that folk songs dealt with grim subjects, even when their melodies were jolly. Twentieth century emotional dissociation? These ditties aren't "simple". Stone's singing gives them dignity. For these alone, this disc is significant.

As an extra bonus, there's a short clip of a film made on 12th June, 1912. Butterworth is Morris Dancing, apparently, in Kelmscott, that centre of Arts and Crafts aesthetics. Morris dancing was "new" to art then, having been observed by the middle classes only in 1899, when Cecil Sharp happened upon a troupe of Headington locals dancing on Boxing Day. For Sharp and his followers, this was a Damascus moment, which shaped their future lives. I've seen stills before, but never the whole film. Brief as it is, it's a remarkable document because it shows how carefully formal the dancing was, part ethnographic record, part pleasure. Butterworth is the short, stocky fellow with a moustache, exorcising his repression with jigs, bells and colorful ribbons.

Please also see my review of Roderick Williams's complete Butterworth songs   Williams is much more experienced and is a specialist in this genre, so any comparisons aren't fair. Serious Butterworth fans need both. Stone's recording  was the pioneer, and it has extremely good programme notes - the Naxos one are rubbish. Beside, Stone Records is an enterprising independent company run by musicians.  Naxos isn't.