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My Beloved is Mine - Song cycles by Benjamin Britten

My Beloved is Mine - Song cycles by Benjamin Britten

Linn Records  CKD 404

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Vocal


Britten: On This Island Op. 11, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne Op. 35, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo Op. 22, Canticle I "My Beloved is Mine" Op. 40

James Gilchrist (tenor)
Anna Tilbrook (piano)


For an English tenor, the songs of Benjamin Britten are a rich and hugely important resource. With a great affinity for and understanding of the human voice, Britten has written music of enormous power and conviction. Here is chamber music composed with two particular people very much in mind, where he combines tight compositional structures with real tenderness and lyricism. These works are both approachable and profound, and performing them is a delight. They work in performance, as audiences are moved on so many levels, in both the intellectual and emotional spheres.

It was a form Britten felt drawn to throughout his life, from miniatures in his school days to the fourth canticle of 1971; even thereafter, feeling perhaps that his playing days were behind him, he creates works for harp and voice - folksongs, the Birthday Hansel for the Queen Mother, the fifth canticle - where the hands of Osian Ellis take over from his own. Our choice for this recording includes music composed over ten years from 1937 to 47, and we have decided to concentrate on the larger cycles or sets of songs. These, together with the later Winter Words (which we have already recorded for Linn), are the central ‘meat' of his output for tenor and piano. This ten year span also encompasses the war and Peter Grimes. The war for Britten meant (amongst other things) the articulation and defence of his pacifism (and his consequent ostracism), and his three-year stay in America. Grimes, first performed in 1945, put Britten centre-stage in the British musical world and established him as a major figure internationally. It was a watershed for him. His reputation since has remained rightly secure.

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Recording
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8-10 March, Potton Hall (Suffolk)
Produced & recorded: Philip Hobbs
Post-production: Julia Thomas (Finesplice)
Reviews (1)
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Review by John Miller - September 19, 2012

James Gilchrist is one of the most sought-after of singers in the post-Peter Pears/Britten group of English tenors who are renowned for their interpretations of Britten's superb song cycles. Here he joins outstanding pianist Amanda Tilbrook with a nicely-rounded programme headlined by two of Britten's masterpieces based on the sonnet, a poetic construct which he greatly relished.

By way of introduction, they lead us into an early work, emerging from the meeting of poet W.H. Auden with the composer when they were both working in 1937 for the General Post Office Film Unit. The verses are amongst Auden's most approachable, and even tangentially reflect the propaganda agenda of the film unit. The poet's songs cover a wide range, from patriotic pride to the reality of death, ennobled greatly by Britten's flair and intuition. Gilchrist brings to them his crisp diction and a variety of effective characterisations; from the proud declamatory 'Let the florid music praise!' through the ironical 'Now the leaves are falling fast' to a very good arch imitation of Noel Coward-type cabaret in 'As it is, plenty'. In general, Gilchrist is nevertheless under-stated and rather reserved (I hesitate to say "English"), but Tilbrook more than makes up for this with her enthusiastic athleticism in playing the accompaniments which Britten meant for himself. In fact she provides much of the energy, bravado and rhythm of all the songs in the programme, as well as laying a calmer, deeper ground when darker emotions are called for.

The Holy Sonnets of John Donne Op. 35 represent Britten's inspired choice of text when he returned home from a tour of German concentration camps in 1945, searching for a musical outlet for what he had witnessed. Composed in a matter of days, they are an often declamatory outburst of English philosopher Donne's anguish and religious turmoil between 1609 and 1610, while he was undergoing great personal distress involving physical, emotional, and financial hardship. Gilchrist eschews beauty of tone in much of this reading, bordering on a forced-sounding upper register, while his emotional responses are once again understated, with emotions numbed and despair more noble than fraught. Convincing in its context, but I found myself harking back to the bolder, wilder Padmore, or the faster, more turbulent Bostridge in their respective recordings.

The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (Op. 22) get much the same reserved treatment. Gilchrist's Italian diction is also exemplary, but lacks the lilting and lyrical Italian speech-rhythms of Anthony Rolf-Johnson, who seems better to project the required warmth and overstated breathless excitement of love and its frustrations, agitations and finally voluptuous contentment. The closer recording take of these Sonnets also seems to give Gilchrist's upper range some unflatteringly bright overtones.

For me, the best reading of the programme is of Canticle I, 'My Beloved is Mine' Op. 40 (1947), a psalm-like poem based on the Song of Songs by Francis Quarles (1592-1644). Britten's long, fluid vocal lines, supported by an imaginatively descriptive piano part, are very well characterised by Gilchrist and Tilbrook.

Linn's recording venue was Potterton Hall in Suffolk, a Mecca for sound engineers recording songs. On this occasion, however, the much-treasured ambience of the hall is given very little status, even in multichannel, and Gilchrist's voice is given too much presence for my liking, leading to the issues mentioned above. The piano sound, however, is very good, even slightly upstaging the singer at times.

Linn's liner notes are exemplary. Gilchrist writes with insightful illumination about each item, in track order, with each item followed by its texts, instead of the usual placing of all the texts at the back of the booklet. Very convenient and very well laid out, with (for once) an easily readable font size.

Gilchrist fans will snap up this recording for its many virtues, others might want to listen to Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Mark Padmore and Ian Bostridge for their more vivid portrayals before deciding. That the composer's versions with Pears are still the touchstones for these works almost goes without saying.

Copyright © 2012 John Miller and HRAudio.net