Hubert Parry English Lyrics vol 2 SOMM

New from SOMM recordings, the second volume from Hubert Parry's English Lyrics.   Between 1874 and 1918, Parry wrote 74 songs in twelve collections, all titled "English Lyrics", two sets of which were published after his death.   As Jeremy Dibble writes,"The generic title of English Lyrics symbolized more than purely the setting of English poetry (but) also an artistic manifesto and advocacy of the English tongue as a force for musical creativity shaped by the language's inherent accent, syntax, scansion, and assonance".   German and French composers were quick to recognize how poetry could develop art song, and even set a great deal of Shakespeare (in translation and adaptation). Parry's interest in English lyrics opened new frontiers for British music.  The prosperity of late Victorian and early Edwardian London  fuelled the growth of audiences with sophisticated tastes, many of whom travelled and were up to date with music in mainland Europe. The splendid art nouveau interior of the Wigmore Hall attests to this golden age.  Until 1914, it was the Bechstein Hall, connected to the Bechstein piano company who supplied pianos - and European music - to audiences beyond the choral society/oratorio market.  

The first SOMM volume of Parry English Lyrics focused on settings of Shakespeare, Herrick, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sidney et al (Please read more here).  In this second volume, the emphasis is on poets of the 19th century, some of whom were "modern", ie contemporaries of Parry himself.  A thoughtful choice, for this reinforces the connection to art song in Europe.  Parry's setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's O World, O Life, O Time respects the declamatory nature of the poem, well expresssed by Sarah Fox.  There are two settings of Lord Byron When we two were parted and There be none of Beauty's daughters, the latter inspiring a particularly rich piano lovely vocal complemented by a rich piano part, which sets off the crispness in the vocal line, ideal for the distinctive "English tenor" style, highlighting consonants, eliding vowels, sharpening impact.  Not all English tenors are "English tenors" but here we can hear how the style connects to syntax and expressiveness.  In Bright Star!, a setting of John Keats, James Gilchrist rolls his "r's", and breathes into longer phrases like "or else the swoon of death" shaping each word carefully in the line.  Listen to the way he sings "swoon", drawing out the vowel, the sound of which is echoed by the piano, played by Andrew West.  In Dream Pedlary, (If there were dreams to sell) to a poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Gilchrist's voice curls around the words, adding magical frisson.

Harry Plunket Greene who was to become Parry's son-in-law, premiered many of Parry's songs for baritone.  Perhaps Parry created these songs for Plunket Greene's agile voice and down-to-earth delivery.  It's certainly no surprise that Roderick Williams is easily the finest baritone in  English song, since he sings with a natural directness which communicates almost as if singer and listener were in conversation, which is ideal for English song, where the floridness of, say, an Italianate style would not work.  Also, his voice is not pitched too low, but lends itself to flexiblity and brightness, which suits the English syntax.  It's almost impossible to know English song without having heard Williams, whose experience in this field is unequalled.  Compare Williams in two songs: Thomas Ford's And yet I love her till I die, an early 17th century air, and Love is a bable, a quasi-folk song.  In the first Williams is correct and courtly, in the second, his innate warmth adds sincerity to the wry humour in the song.   In Parry's two settings of poems by George Meredith, Marian and Dirge in the Woods, Williams captures the rollicking, open air energy in the songs. In What part of dread Eternity?, to a text which may be Parry's own, Williams's voice darkens forcefully, taking on the solemn tone of the poem. 

This recording includes the whole ninth set of Parry's English Lyrics, (1908) settings of seven songs by Mary Coleridge (1861-1907).  If the poems are fairly slight, Parry's treatment makes the most of what Jeremy Dibble has called their  "lack of ostentation".  The songs are simple but dignified homilies. Sarah Fox sings them with lucid purity, reflecting their almost Brahmsian reserve.  Elsewhere on this recording,  she sings lyrical pieces like Proud Maisie (Walter Scott) and A Welsh Lullaby (John Ceiriog Hughes), a poet popular in 19th century Wales.

Vaughan Williams Weekend St John's Smith Square

Ralph Vaughan Williams and Friends Weekend at St John's Smith Square, a glorious three-day celebration of British music. This follows on the success of previous SJSS weekends devoted to Schubert and Schumann.  Curated by Anna Tilbrook, the RVW/SJSS weekend features The Holst Singers, James Gilchrist, Philip Dukes, and Ensemble Elata. The Weekend runs from 7th to 9th October, but get tickets soon as they will sell fast. There's no clash with the Oxford Lieder Festival which starts the following weekend, this year featuring Schumann.


Friday 7th at 7.30 : The Holst Singers conducted by Benjamin Nicholas launch the festival on Friday evening: Parry I was Glad, Stanford Beatoi quorum via, W Lloyd Weber, Howells Requiem, Holst Nunc Dimittis, and RVW's Lord thou hast been our refuge





Saturday 8th at 1 pm :  RVW Songs of Travel, Elgar Salut d'amour, Frank Bridge Oh, that it were so, Rebecca Clarke Passacaglia, Quilter : Go, lovely Rose, Bantock Hebrew Melody, Ivor Gurney Ludlow and Teme

Saturday 8th 4 pm : The Folk Connection  Quilter I will go with my father a-ploughing, Percy Grainger : Molly on the Shoree, RVW : Along the Field, Six Studies in English Folk Song, Winter's Willow and Linden lea, Rebecca Clarke : I'll bid my heart be still, Grainger: Handel in the Strand.

Saturday 8th at 7.30 : The Spiritual Realm  RVW : Rhosymedre, Four Hymns, Orpheus with his lute, Sky above the roof, Silent Noon, Piano Quintet, Finzi : Til the Earth Outwears, Elgar : Chanson de matin, Chanson de nuit (photo above Finzi and RVW, courtesy Finzi Trust)

Sunday 9th at 11.30 : The Shadow of War : Bliss Elegaic Sonnet, Ireland The Darkened valley, Butterworth : Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, Elgar : Piano Quintet

Sunday 9th at 3 pm : The Shadow of War II : Ireland ;The Soldier, Blow out, you bugles, Spring Sorrow, Elgar : Sospiri, Gurney: Severn Meadows, Lights Out, Sleep, In Flanders, By a Bierside, Howells : Elegy, RVW : On Wenlock Edge

James Gilchrist Sally Beamish premiere Wigmore Hall

James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook at the Wigmore Hall, London, with  Sally Beamish's West Wind.  Gilchrist has been one of the most determined advocates of English song, almost from the beginning of his career.  Although his core repertoire is built on solid foundations of Handel, Purcell, RVW, Britten, and especially Gerald Finzi of whom he is a great exponent, Gilchrist has always made a point of promoting composers who should be more in the mainstream, like Hugh Wood, Lennox Berkeley and John Jeffreys and others whom he's performed live but not recorded. .  By commissioning Beamish, one of the most prominent British composers for voice, Gilchrist is again making a valuable contribution to British music.

Beamish's West Wind is based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, which everyone knows as a poem, but which has hardly ever been set to music, at least not in full.  English poets dominate world literature - Shakespeare, the Restoration poets, Wordsworth, Keats - but this heritage is hardly reflected in music. History might explain things. The Industrial Revolution transformed British society, making it more urban and centralized than was the case elsewhere in Europe.  British and continental European strands of Romanticism were very different, in ways too complex to describe here.  Furthermore,  the British choral tradition was so strong that other forms of music making didn't get much attention.  Perhaps the very nature of English Romantic poetry is relevant.  The style is fulsome and elegaic, lending itself to oratorio rather than to art song. It's significant that Hubert Parry was one of the first to create art song from English poetry.  Read here about the ground breaking series of Parry's songs to English texts from Somm Records  (Gilchrist, Roderick Williams and Susan Gritton.)

Rolling, circular figures introduce Beamish's West Wind , the voice entering from a distance as if it were being blown in by the "pestilence stricken multitudes".  Soon, though, the voice asserts itself.,  Gilchrist sings the words "Cold and low.....the corpse within its grave". A slow, penetrating chill descends, but, like the wind, the music changes direction, at turns capricious, then still, then rushing forth.  The third section is particularly beautiful. Delicate piano figures lead into curling, keening vocal phrases that seem to hover in the air, "Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams".   In the lower register of the piano, perhaps we can detect sonorous "lungs". Suddenly lightness returns. "If I were a dead leaf", Gilchrist sings, almost unaccompanied, suggesting fragility.  His touch is delicate, yet perfectly poised. The phrasing suits his voice. Gilchrist has the strange esoteric timbre of a typical English tenor, but also direct, almost conversational  naturalness.  From vulnerable sensitivity to the ferocity of the last poem. "Make me thy lyre" Gilchrist growls at the bottom of his timbre. Now Tilbrook's playing flutters weightlessly, like falling leaves.  "Scatter, scatter, scatter" Gilchrist sings, each word on a slightly different level.  "O.. O...O " he sang, mimicking the sound of wind, the word "Wind" pitched and held  so high that it floated, rarified, into air.

Beamish's West Wind is quirky, underlining the disturbing undercurrents in a poem ostensibly about Nature, but too malign to be a "nature poem". I kept thinking of  Peter Warlock's The Curlew, another cycle well suited to Gilchrist's style.  I also remembered Gilchrist's  Die Schöne Müllerin. There are hundreds of recordings, but his stood out out from the competition because it was an interpretation derived as if from clinical observation of the miller's psychology.

In this Wigmore Hall recital, Gilchrist and Tilbrook included songs by Mendelssohn,and Liszt and Schumann's Liederkreis op 39. Eichendorff's poems are less overtly ironic than Heine's, which formed the basis of Schumann's Leiderkreis Op 24.  but are perhaps closer to,the spirit of the very early Romantic period. After hearing this performance, I've decided to grt Gilchrist's recent recording of the Schumann song cycles on Linn.

photo credit operomnia.uk/Hazard Chase Management

Eclectic Aldeburgh Music Festival 2012

The British don't appreciate Aldeburgh. Indeed, many don't appreciate Benjamin Britten's unique place in British music history. Just as the town faces the North Sea, Britten's horizons were European. The Aldeburgh Festival brought Shostakovich to the west, and the Hesse connection brought German interest. To truly understand Britten's artistic nature, appreciate Aldeburgh for what it is. Britten's vision was English, but eclectic, not insular.

What a pity he missed meeting Béla Bartók, who came to Aldeburgh in 1923, in a concert organized by a teacher in a girls' school. In those days, it wasn't unusual for artists to circulate outside big cities. When I was transcribing Elizabeth Schumann's papers she was organizing pianists and concerts in tiny, out of the way places in England to supplement on her visits to England.  Béla Bartók's visit to Aldeburgh is explored in a talk on 22/6. His music features throughout the festival including three important recitals by the Keller Quartet, who specialize in modern Hungarian composers, and an unmissable recital with Dezső Ránki on 15/6. He's playing late Liszt, Bartók, Hadyn and a premiere by Barnabas Dukay.

Three recitals by Miklós Perényi, a recital and a masterclass with Menachem Pressler, two concerts by Peter Serkin, one with Gabriela Montero and Alfred Brendel, talking about Liszt and illustrating with piano. And of course Pierre-Laurent Aimard himself, on his own and with Matthias Goerne. The Arditti Quartet and Helmut Lachermann, whose music also comes under the spotlight. Lachenmann will be there himself and Ensemble Modern, the great European ensemble who rarely grace our shores. Seriously important figures, attracted to a small seaside town by Aimard and Aldeburgh's reputation.

Oliver Knussen's Aldeburgh connections are impeccable, too. He's a former director of the Festival and still a major presence, and lives up the road! Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop! will be this year's opera offerings. They were inspired by the tales of Maurice Sendak, so reflect Knussen's quirky imagination. He read the stories to his daughter, "the Muse of Higgelty Pigglety Pop!". The operas are coming to the Barbican later in the year, semi straged by Netia Jones. Excellent cast, including Claire Booth, Susan Bickley, Rebecca Bottone and others. These are more than "children's operas" (a concept Britten would have loved)  and will remind us how important Knussen has been for music in this country.

Knussen's British but spent his formative years in the US. So it's significant that he's included in his keynote concert Charles Ives' Washington's Birthday as well as a new work of his own.  A rare chance to hear Charles Ives' uncompleted Universe Symphony on 24/6. This is its European premiere, and will be conducted by James Sinclair, Ives scholar, "using every corner of Snape Maltings its airy acoustics and unique idyllic natural surrounds as a single vast performance space".  Interesting to compare the ideas with John Cage Musicircus, the day before, this time with Exaudi.  Every Cage musicircus is different - there's one on March 3 at the ENO, by Cage's intimates.

Perhaps the last thing Britten wanted was to turn Aldeburgh into a theme park for his music, attracting day trippers and English Defence Leaguers after "The Britten/Britain Experience". He'd be rolling in his grave to think of himself and the ethos he loved rebranded in that way. Instead, Aldeburgh honours Britten by reecognizing what he really stood for, which is artitsic integrity and creative growth. Aldeburgh is a Festival for and by musicians.

Real Britten fans know his music well enough to cope with things like Before Life and After, Netia Jones's dramatizations of Britten, Finzi and Tippett with James Gilchrist as soloist. When this was on at Kings Place in 2010, it was excellent, and should be even better at Aldeburgh.  Britten's music doesn't need to overwhelm the Festival, for his ideas pervade the whole Festival, encompassing music, walks, community events, visual arts, early and modern music, film and achitecture. Booking starts this week. Complete brochure here.
Please look at the many things I've written about Aldeburgh in past years, and about the various composers featured. Also tips on food and shopping!

photo: William M Connolley

First complete Hugo Wolf songs set - part 1 Mörike

Hugo Wolf's songs to poems by Eduard Mörike are perhaps the most exquisite Lieder ever written. The songs flowed from Wolf's pen as if divinely inspired. Maybe they were, for they express the spirit of the poems so perfectly, it's almost as if they wrote themselves. Sometimes Wolf would write several in a day, intoxicated by their beauty.

This latest CD from small, independent label Stone Records  is the first in what will eventually be the first complete collection of Wolf's songs by a single group of performers. It will be a monumental undertaking, spread over 11 or 12 discs. There are more than 50 Mörike settings alone, and the range is so wide that one singer can't do them equal justice. Besides, hearing them performed together is a unique experience. This recording was made live at the Holywell Music Room in October 2010 as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival. The disc captures the spontaneous immediacy of live performance. One singer per song, of course, but such a sense of ensemble. These performers are listening to each other avidly, projecting and expecting a response from one another. It's hard to quantify precisely why this feels so vivid, but it feels right, as if we're listening to a group of friends at an early Wolfverein recital.

Perhaps it's because all these performers have worked together for years and have an established rapport. Sophie Daneman, Anna Grevelius, James Gilchrist and Stephan Loges, with pianist Sholto Kynoch, interact intuitively, so the recital flows seamlessly. They're clearly getting pleasure from being together, and the sense of ensemble comes over nicely.  The balance of four different voice types adds extra variety and adds to the charm. Chamber quartet in voice!

The sum of this performance is greater than its parts alone. Obviously, this set won't replace Schwarzkopf or Fischer-Dieskau or most of the really huge names that have done these songs before, but it's rewarding because it feels so personal.  This makes it special, and recommended for anyone who wants to know how live performance differs, even on recording, to studio work. This matters especially as Mörike was a poet for whom privacy was a statement of faith. He became a country prelate so he didn't have to work hard but could spend his time contemplating wild flowers and feeling the sunshine on his back. He believed in earth spirits and the supernatural. Not a man for whom the public sphere held  much attraction. Perhaps Wolf identified so closely with him because he, too, valued friendship and stillness. Both Mörike and Wolf were depressive. Perhaps they were aware that the "real" world isn't a nice place.

Each of these singers is highly experienced and distinctive, so it's also artistically rewarding. Sophie Daneman's Das verlassene Mägdlein is delicate and Stephan Loges' Fussreise vigorous. Anna Grevelius's An eine Äolsharfe lilts so gently that you imagine the sounds of a wind harp, animated by soft but invisible breezes. James Gilchrist shapes his words well in Auf eine Wanderung. Listen to the delicious "r"'s : "rückwärts die Stadt in goldnem Rauch: wie rauscht der Erlenbach wie rauscht der Erlenbach". Kynoch's piano dances lithely along, reinforcing the happy mood.

I confess a vested interest. I've long been associated with Oxford Lieder and contributed towards making this recording possible. Can't hide if my name's in the booklet!  On the other hand, I wouldn't be in that position if I hadn't spent a lifetime listening to Lieder and to Wolf. So I can sincerely recommend this recording. The ensemble atmosphere is so good that it will be a long time before this disc is surpassed in that sense. It is excellent, too, as an introduction to Wolf and to Mörike, because it enters into the inner world that inspired them better than more formal, technically sophisticated and "knowing" performances.

Please see my review of Stone Records Hugo Wolf Songs vol 4 - the early songs, Keller, Fallersleben, Ibsen and others, It's a must for serious Wolf lovers as rarities are conveniently collected together. I've also explained the arc of the set.

Complete Hugo Wolf Mörike songs

Has the complete Hugo Wolf Mörike collection been recorded in one take? There's one coming up now. The first half was recorded Friday 22/10 at the Holywell Music Room, part of the Oxford Lieder Festival.  Second part is 23/10 if you can get in.

The small hall was absolutely packed, wonderful atmosphere, everyone crammed together but intently listening. Some of that energy must have come across into the performances. An almost palpable sense of connection between performers and audience - personal, direct communication. This recording, hopefully, will feel "live".

This recording shows what can be done with enterprise, enthusiasm, dedication, and bold artistic vision. An inspiration for all! Last week, OLF needed 40 sponsors for the recording. Before tonight's concert, 22 had signed up. After the concert, there was a line of people eager to join in. The target will be reached and the money will be used well. CD sales will go towards Oxford Lieder's ongoing projects like the masterclasses, commissions and scholarship and also next year's 10th anniversary Festival. Plus, it's a good addition to the Hugo Wolf discography.

If tonight's performance is anything to go by, the CD will be worth getting. Singers were Oxford Lieder stalwarts, Stephan Loges, Sophie Daneman, Anna Grevelius and James Gilchrist with OLF 's creative leader Sholto Kynoch at the piano. All are well established and hardly need introductions. Anna is a regular at the ENO - she was Seibel and Vavara not long ago. Sholto's a charismatic player, very empathic, which makes him a good pianist for song. He also plays solo and chamber music but he's specially good at motivating singers to give their best.

With fifty-three songs, there are many good moments, everyone doing well. James Gilchrist was in very good form, animated, expressive, full of feeling. yet with the panache that works well in Wolf. Loved that final Auf eine altes Bild. (Read a commentary on the song here)

Check out the Oxford Lieder website for more - hard copy brochure can be downloaded online.

Schumann Wigmore Hall Gilchrist Maltman

Schumann is a perennial at the Wigmore Hall.  This recital, with James Gilchrist, Christopher Maltman and Julius Drake, was well attended. Many friends in the audience new and old, By sheer coincidence two people, from different parts of the world met up, who'd both been in choirs where Maltman sang. The Wigmore Hall "family" spans the globe.

Whoever reorganized the order of the first songs deserves praise. Placing Trost im Gesang with Der frohe Waldersmann shows wit. Kerner and Eichendorff were very different men. Eichendorff was a devout Catholic, who shaped the idealistic Prussian education system. Kerner was a medical doctor who believed in what we'd now call pseudo-science – mesmerism, spirit messages etc. Yet which was really the more unconventional?

Kerner's traveller sets forth, confident that song will guide him on his path.  Eichendorff's traveller thinks about two quite different paths but hopes that God will arrange things right. The pious mood is underscored by something more troubling. Double-edged piety, like Mörike's Gebet. ("send me what you will, God, but not too much either way)"

In  Eichendorff's Fruhlingsfahrt, two sturdy youths set forth, both striving for lofty things. One finds happiness in simple things. The other is seduced by the sirens of the deep and ends up a shattered wreck. Both Fruhlingsfahrt and Der frohe Wandersman show that  Eichendorff's fascinated by wilder shores even while he praises domesticity. His homilies to God are talismanic, for he intuits that creativity can be dangerous. An artist is driven by something greater than his own free will.  Happy Wanderer? No way.

Perhaps Schumann, already aware of his own emotional extremes, intuited that Eichendorff understood the connection between art and madness. Eichendorff's poetry was "new" at the time, the poet outliving the composer. Hence the fearfully tricky phrasing in the song, and in Sängers Trost, which seem deliberately designed to knock a singer outside his comfort zone. Much credit to James Gilchrist for negotiating the difficulties so well. He's so engaged with meaning that he brings out the true spirit of these songs, which superficial performances don't reach.

Gilchrist is an ideal character tenor. Like Philip Langridge, he has the knack of getting inside a part, developing it through thoughtful observation and empathy. Gilchrist's spent most of his career in oratorio and song, but it is in opera where his skills in characterization are really needed.  As an actor, he's a natural because he's empathic, able to build personality into any part he sings. In opera, a singer with Gilchrist's emotional intelligence would do wonders.

I've never forgotten Christopher Maltman's Tarquinius in the Rape of Lucretia, where his body builder's physique gave the role a powerful, malevolent edge.  That's character singing, albeit in a different way.  While I was bothered by many things in Maltman's Liederkreis Op 39, my friends enjoyed it a lot.  Lieder is communication, so in that sense, it worked well.  There are just so many Liederkreises op 39 and 24, that we're spoiled. 

Withe the Four Lieder op 40 to settings of Hans Christaian Andersen, Maltman could focus on each song as a vignette, for each tells a story.  Der Spielmann lets him created the fiddler wildly playing at a wedding. Then the punchline, Bin selber ein armer Musikant. The fiddler's more involved in the wedding than we realize. He's pulling back, emotionally, much as Eichendorff switches to God.

Schumann's 12 Kerner Lieder op 35 were the highlight of the evening.  This is a very tightly structured cycle, sometimes compared to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, or even to a miniature symphony, even though the texts are a mixeed batch. This indicates that perhaps Schumann heard greater possibilities in them than a straightforward textual study might indicate.

Lust der Sturmnacht is strange.The poet wants the stormy night to continue because he can be with his lover. But can't they have fun without the wildness outside? Suddenly lust (in both senses) gives way to unearthly calm and purity. In Stirb, Lieb' und Freud', a young girl is praying, transfixed in rapture. The poet stunned to silence, knowing he can't compete with the Virgin Mary.

Gilchrist seems to intuit that this sudden switch between turbulence and ecstasy might just be what drew Schumann to put these random poems together in this order. Schumann was obsessed by cryptic puzzles and hidden clues. In this cycle the "tavern songs" are popular but drinking songs they aren't. Drink lowers defences, releasing ghosts, memories and suppressed emotion. The two key songs are moments of quiet contemplation: Stille Liebe and Stille Tränen.  Because Gilchrist captures the extreme mood swings so well, he captures the schizoid character of these songs. On the surface they don't fit together but if the highly literate Schumann heard connections, so should we. Wonderful, vivid singing, animated and expressive.

Afterwards, I told him that it was so good that it didn't matter if one single word wasn't ideal, in an otherwise outstanding performance.  "But it matters to me!", he saIt's that emotional honesty that makes Gilchrist an ideal character tenor.

Last week, when Julius Drake played Hugo Wolf, he hammered away so forcefully that someone commented that the piano might be faulty. At the Wigmore Hall, pianos are objects of sacred veneration. If a piano was out of tune, someone would be lynched.  Fortunately, this time Drake gave much more respect to tempi, dynamics and singers.  Much better!
COMING UP tomorrow: Makropulos Case,  Jurowski Mahler 3 and more.

Three Choirs Festival Finzi Gurney Elgar

At the Three Choirs Festival, concerts start with prayers, which is a good thing, because it reminds us how lucky we are. Without music, beauty, spirituality (of any form) what would life be?

Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality is an act of faith, too, in the power of art to transcend. Relatively few composers have dared tackle William Wordsworth, whose poetry is too thorny  to adapt easily to song. Finzi took years perfecting his Thomas Traherne setting, Dies Natalis, but daringly threw himself spontaneously into Intimations of Immortality.

It's ambitious, requiring a large orchestra, a well trained chorus and a tenor with the fortitude to sustain 45 minutes of singing against a loud background. Finzi attempts to match the grand, stirring verse of Wordsworth with an equally expansive orchestral setting. For a composer whose strength was in smaller scale chamber and choral music and song, it is quite an achievement. As Finzi quipped "it makes a hell of a noise, but rather a wonderful noise all told".

James Gilchrist is perhaps the finest exponent, against very strong competition (Ainsley, Langridge, Partridge) because he enters into the heroic spirit of this monumental piece. Against the vast forces behind him, and in the vastness of Gloucester Cathedral, Gilchrist's voice rings out resolutely. He's very moving, for he breathes meaning into what he sings, making Wordsworth's convoluted text feel personal and immediate. Get his recording, it's wonderful, the best introduction to the piece..

Like  Dies Natalis, the introduction whispers themes to come.  The orchestra is singing "There was a time, when meadow, grove and stream" before the voice comes in. The idea of unity between soloist, choir and orchestra, central to the mysticism in the piece.

 Gilchrist draws you into "the visionary gleam". "Waters on a starry night" sings Gilchrist, with the subtlest pause before and after the image, as if he's contemplating a wondrous jewel.  Then again, with "the innocent brightness of a newborn day". What miracle is happening here ? Overwhelming ecstasy that can't be explained in mundane terms, exquisitely wondrous. "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears", revealed by Gilchrist's shining conviction.

The Philharmonia Orchestra, from London, are talking up a three year residence at the Three Choirs Festival,  so their playing adds a sheen much more polished than average. In time, they'll absorb Finzi's very unusual idiom, where intuition counts as much as form. The Philharmonia is possibly the finest British orchestra, steeped in European repertoire. Adrian Lucas, who conducted,  is an organist and choirmaster, long associated with Three Choirs. It was interesting to hear how these two different traditions combine. This partnership between Three Choirs and the Philharmonia could prove quite an innovation.

The Philharmonia has done quite a lot of Elgar. Here at Gloucester, Sarah Connolly was soloist for Sea Pictures, singing with heroic purpose,  Boudicca refined and cultured.

The real rarity on this programme, however, was Ivor Gurney's The Trumpet, receiving its first professional performance, 80 years after it was written.  Gurney was Gloucester born, so deeply identified with the area that, in some ways, he died of a broken heart, forcibly confined in an asylum far away. When a map of the Cotswolds was smuggled into him, he obsessively traced his old hiking trails with his fingers. If only he could have known that his music would be given high profile exposure at Three Choirs, and in Gloucester Cathedral, where he sang in the choir and learned his music.
 
Gerald Finzi would have been happy, too, for he passionately championed Gurney. I don't know if Christopher and Hilary Finzi were in the audience, (they usually are) for their presence would have felt like completing a circle.

The Trumpet, based on a poem by Edward Thomas (text here), is a short piece for choir and orchestra, recently restored in full orchestration by Philip Lancaster. "Rise up! Rise up!" sing the combined voices, "Arise! Arise!". Trumpets and horns blow alarums, the effect overall uplifting. I enjoyed this! Read more about the genesis of this orchestration of The Trumpet on Philip Lancaster's site , which is a goldmine.

On Thursday 12th, another Gurney first, the restoration of Gurney's A Gloucestershire Rhapsody was premiered by The Philharmonia and Martyn Brabbins. That is a major story, no-one's picked up on nationally, except the BBC. It deserves proper respect,so please click here for more. ease keep coming back to this site, where there's lots on Gurney, Finzi, Three Choirs, Elgar etc. and will be more, too. With the beatification of John Cardinal Newman coming up, I might also write about a true life,  real miracle that happened at the last Gloucester Three Choirs Dream of Gerontius. Read about it HERE. Miracles don't have to be fancy stuff like raising the dead and moving mountains.  But there are uncanny, inexplicable things that do immense good. PLEASE READ many other articles and reviews on this site about 3 Choirs, Ivor Gurney, Finzi, Hubert Parry, Butterworth and English music - use labels at right or search button.

Finzi : Intimations of Immortality James Gilchrist

Super performance today by James Gilchrist of Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin. I rushed home to listen to another DSM but couldn't resist pulling up one of the best Gilchrist recordings, Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality. There are many good recordings of Finzi’s masterpiece Dies Natalis op. 8 but relatively few of Intimations of Immortality op. 29. Only two recordings are readily available, one with Philip Langridge (Hickox, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, 1988) and another with John Mark Ainsley (Best, Corydon Orchestra and chorus, 1996). The surprise is that this new recording is so good it exceeds even the high standards of its predecessors. This is the one to get, on nearly every count.
Intimations is a blockbuster, a spectacular on a massive scale. As Finzi himself joked, it was a “hell of a noise, but rather a wonderful noise all told”. It certainly is ambitious, requiring a large orchestra, a well trained big chorus and a tenor with the fortitude to sustain 45 minutes of singing against a loud background. Finzi attempts to match the grand, stirring verse of Wordsworth with an equally expansive orchestral setting. For a composer whose strength was in smaller scale chamber and choral music and song, it is quite an achievement: in some ways it outdoes Vaughan Williams in dramatic effects. Nonetheless, its very sprawling ambitiousness, and the rush with which it was completed for first performance in 1950 poses problems. This means all the more that it needs to be performed with clear vision.

As with Dies Natalis, Intimations starts with an Andante setting out the main themes to come: the horn solo is particularly evocative, with its echoes of Arcadia. Then Gilchrist enters, pure and clear. Gilchrist’s voice is remarkably beautiful, pure and clear. Ainsley brings a highly refined, magical quality to his singing: this baroque sensibility brings out a deeply spiritual level to the text, which is utterly appropriate and will remain a favourite of mine. But Gilchrist has a more direct, almost conversational edge which expresses profound conviction. His phrasing is immaculate, his diction so clear that Wordsworth’s difficult long sentences come across with a natural ease and flow. Wisely, the recording keeps his voice in the foreground. Langridge’s more straightforward singing is more recessed into the whole, which doesn’t help, since the soloist’s role is so important.

David Hill has been conducting Finzi for years, and with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and chorus, he has fine musicians to work with. The results show in by far the most animated, vivacious playing of all three recordings. One of the critical points for me is the xylophone solo which dominates the fourth stanza. Stephen Banfield, one of the great Finzi commentators, calls it, charitably, “ragtime”, though what place ragtime has in Wordsworth, I don’t know. Of course it’s cheerful, but in the Best/Corydon recording in particular it reminds me far too much of “The Donkey Serenade”, a concept totally jarring to the ideas in Wordsworth and the general thrust of the music, and spoils the recording. Hickox may not mute its effect, but doesn’t overemphasize it, either. Hill thoughtfully tones it down and keeps it more integrated with the rest of the orchestra and the choir, so it does not jar quite so much. Indeed, he gets from his players a clarity and liveliness that complements Gilchrist’s expressive singing. This is one of the strengths of this recording, as balancing the constituent parts of the piece make it flow with more spirit and feeling. What Finzi may have been seeking, after all, was a profound emotional charge, so as to equal Wordsworth’s intense poetry. While the Langridge/Hickox recording has its merits, it’s far more conservative and unadventurous. It doesn’t capture the sense of wonder and excitement that Finzi’s spectacular setting seems to cry out for.

Indeed, what strikes me about his setting is its “technicolor” elements: great surges of volume, intense chromatics, lushly romantic voices and strings in particular. It’s not surprising that the Hollywood musician Bernard Herrmann was one of the first to appreciate the work for what it was. Hollywood may have bad connotations in conservative eyes, but in those dark days of post-war austerity, it meant something quite different. If Finzi sought the ebullient and the upbeat, it seems quite natural that he should have written music whose boundless optimism transcended parochial convention. It’s no defect. Indeed, Banfield calls the chirpy little melody that illustrates the words “this sweet May morning” as “one of most sly pieces of mickey-mousing outside Hollywood”. Finzi’s good humour meant he was no po-faced musical snob. Gilchrist, Hill and the Bournemouth musicians seem to understand Finzi’s quintessential approach, so their bright, vivacious performance is more in keeping with the composer’s vision than their rather staid predecessors. Finzi ends the work with a sparsely orchestrated, exquisitely elegant simplicity, all the more profound for its contrast with what went before. In this final stanza, Gilchrist’s singing is almost surreally beautiful. The way he sings “another race have been, and other palms are won” gives me goosebumps, for so clearly does he evoke "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”.“