Release Date: 31 October 2004
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313219926
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BRITTEN
Description
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Orchestral Song-Cycles 2Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings Nocturne PhaedraThe medium of the orchestral song-cycle is one thatmuch attracted Britten. His concept of an anthology ofsometimes diverse texts, unified by a common literaryor poetic theme was a favourite device to which hereturned several times. The present recording featureshis two later and arguably best-known works in thegenre, together with a major vocal work dating fromthe very last years of the composer's life.Britten's return from his three-year sojourn inAmerica in 1942 represented a homecoming that wasmore than purely geographical. As is well-known, itwas his reading an article by E.M. Forster about thepoet George Crabbe in an edition of The Listener thatmade Britten homesick for his native Suffolk andprompted his subsequent return to England with theidea for a new opera, Peter Grimes, uppermost in hismind. As if in preparation for the task ahead, Brittenundertook the composition of a number of vocal andchoral works including A Ceremony of Carols, theHymn to St Cecilia, Rejoice in the Lamb and, perhapsmost important of all, the Serenade for tenor, horn andstrings, Op. 31, composed during March and April1943. In the summer of the previous year, Britten hadbecome acquainted with the remarkable young hornplayerDennis Brain (1921-1957) who during the warwas playing in the R.A.F. Central Band, for whichBritten was writing incidental music for a series ofwartime radio documentaries. It was not long beforeBrain asked Britten for a work especially for him andthe idea for the Serenade was born. The firstperformance took place on 15th October 1943 at theWigmore Hall in London with Brain and Peter Pears assoloists and Walter Goehr conducting. In a letter to hisfriend Elizabeth Mayer, Britten characterized theSerenade as 'not important stuff, but quite pleasant Ithink', a surprisingly modest way of describing what iswidely regarded to be one of the finest and mostcharacteristic of all his works. The cycle is dedicated toEdward Sackville-West, a writer friend of Britten'swho had helped with the choice of texts.The Serenade opens with a Prologue for solo hornplayed on the instrument's natural harmonics (causingsome notes to sound deliberately out-of-tune), evokingan atmosphere of 'natural', primeval innocence. Thismood is sustained in the twilit landscape of Cotton'sPastoral with its gently descending arpeggio figures inthe voice and horn, and the more vigorous setting ofTennyson's Nocturne, notable for its cadenza-likefanfare passages ('Blow, bugle, blow') with theirhighly characteristic chains of thirds. The relativelyuncomplicated nature of these first two settings makesthe contrast with the third, Blake's Elegy, all the moreeffective: this is one of Britten's most overt andexplicit representations of, as Edward Sackville-Westput it, 'the sense of sin in the heart of man'. The quietlyheaving syncopations in the strings and ploddingdouble bass arpeggios a
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
