Rutland Boughton is
better known for his music dramas, such
as the Immortal Hour and Bethlehem,
than for song, but was nonetheless both
a prolific and a skilled song composer.
The British Music Society has here compiled
a selection of some pleasing examples,
sympathetically performed by mezzo-soprano
Louise Mott accompanied by Alexander
Taylor.
It is important to
understand - as Michael Hurd points
out in his excellent sleeve notes -
that Boughton did not choose his texts
for beauty of language, inherent musicality
or poetic expression. He set poems for
their message (usually political), using
texts that expressed particular ideals
– often feminist and socialist sentiments.
Boughton does not, therefore, offer
us further settings of the Shakespeare,
Housman, Tennyson, Blake, Rossetti and
Hardy poems, but brings us the socialist
Edward Carpenter, William Sharp, the
suffragette Mary Richardson, and Boughton’s
rather feminist partner Christina Walshe.
The disc opens with
four songs with texts from Edward Carpenter’s
Towards Democracy. Mott’s voice
is fairly operatic, which is perfect
for the dramatic To Freedom and
Fly Messenger, and, although
she manages suitable gentleness and
poignancy in the later A Song of
Taking and Sweet Ass, I do
not, however, find her quite delicate
enough in the tender The Dead Christ.
Five Celtic Lovesongs ensue, with words
by Fiona Macleod (William Sharp – whose
play Boughton adapted to form the libretto
of The Immortal Hour), and then
the intense Songs of Womanhood
by Christina Walshe. Three further songs
from Towards Democracy follow,
before the Symbol Songs, setting
the poems of Mary Richardson. Amongst
these, the upbeat Honeysuckle
particularly delighted me – its liveliness
and syncopation setting it slightly
apart from the other songs, which have
a little bit of tendency to sound fairly
similar. The disc concludes with a setting
of Eleanor Farjeon’s Sweet Ass.
The fact that the texts
have been picked for ideological reasons
rather than artistic ones stands out.
Boughton set himself a hard task by
choosing poems that do not lend themselves
to music, and are far from easy words
to set - the word-setting is consequently
a far cry from the natural flow of Finzi,
Quilter or Britten. Yet the songs are
still original, dramatic, striking and
occasionally invested with some of the
magic that pervades Immortal Hour
(the New Madonna, for example,
inhabits a similar world). The fact
that I found myself humming some of
the songs the day after I’d listened
to the disc is, I believe, a good sign!
Louise Mott has a lovely
voice, warm and characterful, with excellent
enunciation and a good sense of drama,
although I found her vibrato a little
too excessive on occasions. Alexander
Taylor is a sensitive accompanist, although
the piano is slightly too prominent
– the balance a little too skewed towards
the piano and away from the singer.
The BMS have excelled
themselves here in a beautiful production.
The disc contains some charming songs,
well performed and brilliantly presented
in a highly professional, attractive
layout with full and clear sleeve-notes.
Congratulations, BMS!
Em Marshall
see also review
by Rob
Barnett
Louise Mott (mezzo) 
for
details
