Hyperion continue to trawl their catalogue for grist for the
reissue mill. These Finzi Trust-supported recordings entered
the lists in the 1990s when the Finzi catalogue looked very sparse
indeed. There was in 1989 no complete set of Hardy cycles on
CD. The Lyrita recordings, reissued last year, had sunk far past
the plunge of plummet. Naxos and Lyrita have entered the lists
only in recent years.
As usual with Hyperion everything is done diligently and with
insight. All the words are in the booklet - no need to go to
some website - and the perceptive and authoritative liner-note
is by Finzi biographer Diana McVeagh who has a lifetime of Finzi
scholarship behind her - not to mention her thoughtful work on
Elgar. Valued little touches are exactly in place such as giving
a date for each song for which a date has been found.
At bargain price these discs command an eminent place in the
market and when placed alongside the Hyperion
Finzi
and Friends disc you have the essence of Finzi
in song. However you
can do better. The 'problem' lies
not so much - in fact not at all - with Clifford Benson. Listen
to Stephen Varcoe in
The Clock of the Years. He does characterise
but he fails to etch the personality and drama of situation with
the acted personality we find with John Carol Case on Lyrita.
Also his voice has a distinct quaver when holding sustained note
as in the word 'theirs' in
Proud Songsters. While
It
Never Looks Like Summer Here is much better in this respect
Hill ploughs comparatively shallow in
I Look into my glass and
again in
He abjures love. Varcoe turns delivery of
I
need not go into sing-song - one feels little of the underpinning
emotions and tensions. Compare the meaning with which Neil Jenkins
imbues the words “… and lightly dance some triple
time romance” in
The Dance Continued, the last song
in
A Young Man's Exhortation with Martyn Hill's assumption.
I will grant you that my reaction is affected by having imprinted
on these songs from the Lyrita LPs a very long time ago. My reaction
however was the same when I bought the full price Hyperion set
when it was first issued. Then we come to one of my favourite
songs -
The Self Unseeing - the words “childlike
I danced in a Dream” should have an ecstatic airborne sense
of poignant liberation. They stay comparatively earthbound with
Stephen Varcoe whose fragility of tone is also exposed in the
words “Everything glowed with a gleam”.
What is fascinating is the effect of the Second Viennese School
on Finzi as borne in on the listener by songs such as
The
Too Short Time,
The Comet at Yellham and
Former
Beauties. Britten's influence can be heard in the
Childhood
Among the Ferns.
These five cycles comprise many great songs. If you discovered
them via this set no disservice would have been done however
if you can bear late 1960s analogue then go for the Lyrita set.
I have been waspish in this review and I do not mean to infer
that these performances lack insight or sympathy. Both qualities
are there and are matched by much more than competence. However
the full reach of Finzi's keen emotional scalpel is better felt
with the Lyrita set … and this for all its analogue hiss,
its sometimes papery piano sound and the dryness of Robert Tear's
voice.
Rob Barnett
Other relevant Finzi pages
Lyrita - same coupling - RB: see
review;
JQ: see
review
Complementary Finzi song collection on Hyperion - see
review
Diana McVeagh’s Finzi biography - see
review
John France’s
Finzi
site
Martyn Hill (tenor: op. 14 & 19a);
Stephen Varcoe (baritone: op. 15, 16 & 19b);
Clifford Benson (piano) 
