Peter Pope’s musical life was rather extraordinary. He was born
in 1917 and studied at the R.C.M. – composition with John Ireland
and R.O. Morris, and piano with Cyril Smith. In 1939 he won
a scholarship to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, but the
outbreak of War forced a speedy return to England, via a Spanish
trawler. A Piano Quartet was well received at the Wigmore Hall,
and Augeners offered to publish his work, but Pope instead joined
a religious sect, staying until 1971. Writing music was forbidden
during that time. Afterwards he did write music but he had been
forgotten and his musical career never re-started. Pope died
in 1991.
His is a still, gentle voice. He had the knack of setting unusual
poems – he was clearly fond of Alice Meynell because there are
two sets of her poems in this recital – and he chose some unusual
Eliot (Landscapes), and poems of Housman that are usually
not set, such as Bells in Tower at Evening Toll. He also
liked Ruth Pitter, an astute choice. His gentle and refined
setting of her If You Came sets the tone for the disc
and the way he vests Pratt Green’s Oystercatchers with
such fragility attests to a sure gift. Housman’s Sinner’s
Rue is an example of Pope inflecting the music with a discernable
folkloric hue, a ballad ethos that certainly convinces.
When he turns to Eliot’s Virginia, he is sure to give
the music a definably American accent and a languorous perspective.
Rannoch, by Glencoe, by contrast is spare. Cape Ann
is appropriately quicker with a fierce, almost declamatory
last line.
The Prelude to Housman’s Last Poems is for solo
piano and here the reminiscences of his old teacher, John Ireland,
are strong. Given Not Lent (Meynell) is affectionately
fulsome, with celebratory bell-tolling in the left hand, perceptively
realised by Ann Martin-Davis who proves throughout an admirable
partner. (In Portugal, 1912) receives a fast and genuinely
affirmative, exciting reading.
Throughout, Susan Legg sings with a focused, soft tone, often
sparing of vibrato, and she rises to the rare pitches of drama
in the music with great poise. She’s a fine, imaginative singer
better known in less conventional, contemporary contexts but
proving her value in these more intimate settings.
Full texts are provided. And I should also note that the songs
are even more compact than the timings might suggest, as there
is often as much as six or seven seconds’ silence at the end
of each song. Pope emerges as a thoughtful and sensitive song
composer, very much in the Ireland tradition, and it’s been
good to enjoy his works in so well engineered and performed
a disc as this.
Jonathan Woolf
Susan Legg (mezzo soprano) 
