Peter WARLOCK (1894-1930)
Songbook
Luci Briginshaw (soprano)
Eleanor Meynell (piano)
rec. 23-24 November 2020, 21 April 2021, St John’s, Upper Norwood, London
CONVIVIUM CR062 [56:22]
Having worked as an accompanist with two singers - one bass, the other a baritone – who were passionate purveyors of Peter Warlock songs, I quickly developed a realisation that here was a truly remarkable song composer; one of the very finest, and certainly the most charismatic, of that extraordinary crop of outstanding English songwriters which flourished in the first half of the last century. As an accompanist I marvelled at his astonishing piano accompaniments; chords spiced up with so many supernumerary notes that it was like a master chef let loose in a warehouse stuffed full with rare herbs and spices (“The Everlasting Voices” is a classic example), amazing harmonic labyrinths which would have been the envy of any maze-designer (beautifully exemplified in “Dedication” and “Spring”) and flights of pianistic fancy which resemble nothing more than aural equivalents of those houses which stuff their gardens and walls every year with over-the-top Christmas lights (the second setting of “Take, O take those lips away” and “Consider”). To this day, I frequently sit down and play a Warlock song, minus singer, simply to relish the ingenious piano writing, So it comes as no surprise that it was pianist Eleanor Meynell who, according to her introduction in the booklet, first had the idea of recording Warlock songs with the soprano Luci Briginshaw.
The soprano voice might not seem the most obvious choice for a programme of Warlock songs. Today he might be regarded as something of a misogynist, treating women more as objects than equal beings; the art critic, Brian Sewell, claimed to be an illegitimate son of Warlock, and wrote venomously of his father’s treatment of women. Even allowing for Sewell’s notorious bitchiness, most commentaries on Warlock suggest a man who regarded women merely as sex objects while obviously feeling more at ease in the company (both sexual and social) of men, and one does wonder whether he ever seriously contemplated his songs being sung by a female voice. Warlock’s was certainly a complex personality, and it has been written he chose to compose under the pseudonym Peter Warlock rather than his true name (Philip Heseltine) because of a split personality. But the real reason seems more self-preservationist than psychological; he made enemies as a critic (don’t we all?) and, to avoid subjecting his own music to critical venom by those wishing to return a hostility, he chose a nom-de-plume. (What split personality there was within Warlock has been more convincingly described as Drunk and Sober.)
Alcohol-fuelled conviviality was certainly a driving force in his life, and many of his more famous songs are associated with alcohol consumption and male company. Briginshaw and Meynell have chosen 28 songs for inclusion on this disc, but have studiously avoided these beer-and-men songs: so no “Captain Strattan’s Fancy” or “Maltworms”. Instead we have a range of songs, some well-known, some quite rare, which cover a vast range of texts. Warlock did not seem to have a preference for one writer over another, or for one particular literary style. So here we have Shakespeare (“Take, O take those lips away” and “Pretty Ring Time”) rubbing shoulders with Hilaire Belloc (“Ha’nacker Mill” and “The Night”), Robert Louis Stevenson (“To The Memory of a Great Singer”) with W B Yeats (“The Cloths of Heaven” and “The Everlasting Voices”), and the 3rd century Callimachus (“Heraclitus”) with the 20th century Ford Madox Ford (“Consider”). Some, whether intended or not, seem to suit the soprano voice particularly well (a classic example being “Cradle Song”), while others are quite transformed by the higher -pitched voice (“Sleep” and “Pretty Ring Time” both seem to take on a new life in this guise). And there are some where the accompaniments are just so absorbing that the voice seems almost superfluous (just listen to the magically crisp staccato chords Meynell delivers in “Youth”).
Briginshaw certainly has a feel for these songs, and expresses them beautifully. She is, unquestionably, a very fine musician, but I do have some issues both with her diction (which is not always ideally clear) and the almost operatic rotundity of her voice – mellow rather than sharply focused – which one feels needs something rather more substantial than a diet of 2-minute songs to get its teeth into. But if the voice sometimes does not feel quite right, the exemplary and beautifully detailed accompaniments from Meynell make this a must-have release for all Warlock-afficionados.
Marc Rochester
Contents
The Everlasting Voices [1:42]
Take, O Take Those Lips Away [1:40]
Heraclitus [2:58]
The Water Lily [1:46]
Lullaby [1:35]
Take, O Take Those Lips Away (2nd setting) [1:51]
The bayly berith the bell away [2:53]
My Little Sweet Darling [1:59]
Dedication [2:23]
The Cloths of Heaven [1:53]
The Singer [1:25]
A Sad Song [1:56]
Sleep 2:21]
Autumn Twilight [2:56]
Rest, Sweet Nymphs [2:26]
Spring [1:25]
To the Memory of a Great Singer [1:39]
Consider [1:48]
I Held Love's Head [1:08]
Pretty Ring Time [1:22]
Robin Goodfellow [1:38]
Ha'nacker Mill [2:31]
The Night [2:31]
The Lover's Maze [1:53]
Cradle Song [3:31]
The Contented Lover [1:41]
And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus? [2:09]
Youth [1:37]
