This disc appears on The Sixteen’s own label and is the sixth
that they have recently produced. The very sad demise of Collins Classics
in 1998 left quite a hole in Contemporary British music’s available market.
The label was the home for a lot of Britten as well as Maxwell Davies
and Birtwistle. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have acquired their
Collins recordings and, repackaging them, are enabling new listeners to
hear the superb music they recorded in the 90s and enable us to hear this
magnificent choir at their very best. This disc is a gem and if you did
not obtain it first time around now you can get it at bargain price.
Harry Christophers, in his introductory booklet note,
comments "I am always astounded how years of misguided interpretation
lead to a composer’s intentions being flagrantly ignored and then termed
‘tradition’ … but I didn’t really expect it in performances of more
recent composer’s work. And so it is doubly refreshing to attempt to
be faithful to Britten’s requests." Did he go back to the manuscripts?
Perhaps this may account for occasional discrepancies between the printed
score and what is actually heard. For example in ‘Rejoice in the Lamb’
the treble solo in ‘My cat Jeffrey’ at the words " in the variety"
the notes are quite different. And in the tenor solo section "For
the flowers" the organ part, instead of the pedal dropping below
the stave where marked, always plays one octave higher. Neither of these
changes I find particularly advantageous.
There will be listeners who find these performances
a little mannered or who ultimately prefer an all male choir particularly
for the treble solos. Carys Lane is ideal, but any vibrato in a solo
soprano like Nicola Jenkin and Ruth Dean may well seem out of place.
Nevertheless there is much to enjoy. The disc opens with a delicious
performance of Britten’s very early ‘Hymn to The Virgin’ and this is
followed by a powerful performance of the ‘Hymn to St. Peter’, a piece
that can often appear a little ungainly. The real revelation to me is
the youthful Te Deum in C, which is rarely performed, (written for St.
Mark’s Audley Street in London) with its fecundity of original ideas.
For the rest the performances, especially the tuning
in music that is often more difficult than listeners may realize, are
always excellent. The diction is as good as I have ever heard in these
works, tempi are as marked in the scores and as one is used to.
The rest of the booklet notes by Peter Evans and David
Matthews, who knew Britten very well, are compact and useful. The texts
are given but the ‘Hymn to St. Peter’ is printed with three verses from
the ‘Dies Irae’ text. This has nothing whatsoever to do with this CD!.
‘The Hymn to Saint Columba’ which was set in Latin is not translated.
Gary Higginson