Naxos have usually
provided texts with their song recitals
if not with the operas, but the latest
policy is to tell you that if you want
the texts you can find them on their
website. For this relief much thanks;
it’s useless for me to stand up for
the rights of those who don’t have access
to Internet since they won’t be reading
this review either, but those who opt
to download the words will have NINE
sheets of A4 paper to store away somewhere
(they certainly won’t squeeze into the
jewel-case) each of them neatly printed
on the left margin, the remainder of
the space left blank.
But perhaps somebody
has worked out that those who don’t
bother and just sit back and listen
will never find out that the Hardy poems
sound infinitely better simply read
than sung to these often fussy settings.
Of course, a musical setting doesn’t
remove the original poem from circulation
and there are many settings – including
maybe some of the Shakespeare ones here
– which we cherish while yet cherishing
the original; but the setting must be
an independent work of art and it must
at least achieve equal status with the
original. Quite honestly, I cannot imagine
what Finzi thought this laboured exposition
of "Channel Firing" could
ever add to the black humour of the
poem itself; it simply takes away the
sense of the poetry without substituting
a sense of its own.
And again, the bitterness
yet poised irony of that cruel lament
for lost love, "Amabel", is
more than anything cushioned by the
folksy setting. Is there anything more
Roderick Williams could have done to
put the music across? I don’t think
so; these are performances perfectly
in the English tradition, with rounded
tone, clear on the words and plenty
of pained subtleties to show he’s thinking
about the meaning of the words. And
yet, if you turn to the performance
of "Before and after Summer"
(the single song, no.2 of the cycle
of that name) included by the remarkable
Malena Ernman on her "Songs in
Season" recital, the music is made
to engage vividly. The trouble is, not
just the pronunciation but the whole
manner are those of American cabaret,
so the true believer will detest it;
but if there is to be any chance of
anyone outside the British Isles taking
this music seriously, this is the sort
of communication required.
The Shakespeare songs
of op.18 are a different matter, since
these were all poems which Shakespeare
interpolated into his plays as songs
– they were meant for singing and don’t
have complicated meanings or metres.
All the same, Finzi does insist on disturbing
his melodic line with fiddly displaced
accents and the like as he underlines
minute rhythmic variations within the
poems themselves, perhaps more than
necessary. Elgar used to criticize Parry
for this, and yet if you compare Parry’s
own setting of "O Mistress Mine",
or, in their various ways, those by
Stanford, Craxton and Quilter (all of
which can be found on disc), you find
the composers offering more sheer delight
in singing, and the singer can always
emphasize those little changes of metre
anyway. I must say though, when I took
out the recordings of the first and
last songs of this cycle made on Saga
by the very young Janet Baker, the word
settings all came out naturally, so
perhaps Williams is over-fussy in his
pointing of them. Iain Burnside accompanies
proficiently but his touch, as recorded
(but it seems to be recorded well) is
not able to give luminosity, and therefore
beauty, to Finzi’s dissonant harmonies
and the carefully noted voice-leading
on the second and fourth pages of "For
Life I had never cared greatly"
do not come across.
Songs for those who
like that sort of thing, then, sung
by somebody who evidently likes that
sort of thing. I used to think I did;
I am coming to realize that the British
song repertoire post-Stanford and Parry
does indeed contain riches, but these
are not necessarily where common wisdom
tells you they are.
Christopher Howell
see also reviews
by Jonathan
Woolf, Anne
Ozorio and Em
Marshall
Roderick Williams (baritone), Iain Burnside
(piano) 
