Ian Bostridge

“Two irresistible discs—typically painstakingly produced and documented—and would deserve four stars if only they were there to give” The Times

“This recording offers a profoundly considered and technically immaculate traversal of Britten's three great and varied cycles for tenor and orchestra, conceived with Pears's voice in mind.
Authoritative as the recordings by composer and tenor may be, there is plenty of room for new insights into such complex and inspired scores.
Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured – allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert – this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.
Not that the accounts of the earlier cycles are far behind in going to the heart of the matter.
Bostridge catches all the fantasy and irony of Lesilluminations and projects the text with a biting delivery that stops just the right side of caricature.
Rattle and his orchestra are once again aware of Britten's subtleties of rhythm and instrumentation.
The Serenade, most easily accessible of the three works, demonstrates the advantages of recording after live performances. Everything seems fresh-minted and immediate, nowhere more so than in Radek Baborák's bold yet sensitive horn playing. Some of the verbal overemphases that are now part of Bostridge's vocal persona might not have been approved by the composer but for the most part they second the plangent beauty of his voice, which is evident throughout these very personal and satisfying interpretations. Bostridge writes illuminating notes in the booklet, too, adding to the disc's value.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Best of all is Nocturne, more spartan and enigmatic, about which he makes some very perceptive comments and where he seems more engaged; the anguished 'Prelude' is fiercely impressive. So are Rattle and the Berlin players, throughout - almost glassily beautiful, without being overly cool, and quite passionately paced.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2005 ***

“Bostridge proves an ideal interpreter of Britten's often taxing orchestral song-cycles...With Radek Baborák playing the horn obbligato with wonderful sophistication in the Serenade, the clarity of each of these masterly works is enhanced... Bostridge's word-painting is masterly throughout, matching the example of Peter Pears.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****

“Tenor, conductor and orchestra combine to offer inspired readings. Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured - allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert - this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005

“Few discs of favourite Schubert songs match this for sheer beauty...[Bostridge] offers fresh revelation in even the best-known songs” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“A voice more for Schöne Müllerin than Winterreise, Bostridge's fresh, buoyant, beautifully articulated tenor suits these Lieder perfectly. The literary and musical impulses are in perfect equilibrium, and Drake's rapport is absorbing.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2006 ****

“it is a highly involving performance and is continually lifted by Leif Ove Andsnes's imaginative and atmospheric accompaniments...The recording is beautifully balanced, and this remains an unforgettable performance.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“…acuteness of colour and detail is characteristic of the performance of both artists who, more than most, highlight the mordant, ironic self-awareness that undercuts the wanderer's despair.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2004 ****

“Bostridge makes you think anew about the music in hand, interpreting all these songs as much through the mind of the poet as that of the composer, and, being youthful himself, getting inside the head of the vulnerable poet in his many moods. Quite apart from his obvious gifts as a singer and musician, that's what raises Bostridge above most of his contemporaries, who so often fail to live the words they're singing. Every one of the magnificent Op-24 songs has some moment of illumination, whether it's the terror conveyed so immediately in 'Schöne Wiege', the breathtaking beauty and sorrow of 'Anfang wollt ich' or the breadth and intensity of 'Mit Myrten und Rosen'. In between the two cycles comes a group of the 1840 Leipzig settings that adumbrates every aspect of Bostridge's attributes, as well as those of his equally perceptive partner.
The vivid word-painting in Belsatzar brings the Old Testament scene arrestingly before us. Perhaps best of all is the unjustly neglected Es leuchtetmeine Liebe, a melodrama here perfectly enacted by both performers. Mein Wagen rollet langsam forms a perfect introduction, in its lyrical freedom, to Dichterliebe, an interpretation to rank with the best available in terms of the sheer beauty of the singing and acute response to its sustained inspiration. Listen to the wonder brought to the discovery of the flowers and angels in 'Im Rhein', the contained anger of 'Ich grolle nicht', the sense of bereavement in 'Hör ist das Liedchen' and you'll judge this is an interpretation of profundity and emotional identification, the whole cycle crowned by the sensitivity of Drake's playing of the summarising postlude. To complete one's pleasure EMI has provided an exemplary and forward recording balance.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It would be difficult to overpraise this issue given its manifold revelations concerning the setting of Heine's poetry by Schumann” Gramophone Magazine, April 1998

“The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can't be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that? They would probably not have believed that those two pillars of the old musical establishment would still be standing by in 1999. And in fact how well very nearly all these composers stand! Quilter's mild drawing–room manners might have been expected to doom him, but the three songs here – the affectionate, easy grace of his Tennyson setting, the restrained passion of his 'Come away, death' and the infectious zest of 'I will go with my father a–ploughing' – endear him afresh and demonstrate once again the wisdom of artists who recognise their own small area of 'personal truth' and refuse to betray it in exchange for a more fashionable 'originality'.
Likewise Finzi, whose feeling for Hardy's poems is so modestly affirmed in 'The dance continued'.
Does that song, incidentally, make deliberate reference, at 'those songs we sang when we went gipsying', to Jillian of Berry by Warlock (whose originality speaks for itself)? Jillian of Berry itself perhaps calls for more full–bodied, less refined tones than Bostridge's. One could do with a ruddier glow and more rotund fruitiness in the voice. Yet for most of the programme he isn't merely a well–suited singer but an artist who brings complete responsiveness to words and music. The haunted desolation of Delius's Twilight Fancies is perfectly caught in the pale hue of the voice which can nevertheless give body and intensity to the frank cry of desire, calming then to pianissimo for the last phrase amid the dim echoes of hunting horns in the piano part. Julius Drake plays with strength of imagination and technical control to match Bostridge's own.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010