Unknown Britten

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Britten completed but didn't orchestrate the songs - 'Phrase', 'Aube' and 'À une raison'; Matthews matches them finely to the style of Illuminations. While the cycle is often associated with... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2009, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 5th Oct 2009
Catalogue No: NMCD140
Label: NMC
Length: 77 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

28th September 2009
Gramophone Magazine

Awards Issue 2009

Disc of the Month

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Britten: Les illuminations, Op. 18

Work length22:39

$10.00

$15.00

Sandrine Piau
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

I. Fanfare

Track length2:44

$1.00

$1.50

II. Villes

Track length2:11

$1.00

$1.50

IIIa. Phrase

Track length2:31

$1.00

$1.50

IIIb. Antique

Track length1:09

$1.00

$1.50

IV. Royauté

Track length2:03

$1.00

$1.50

V. Marine

Track length1:37

$1.00

$1.50

VI. Interlude

Track length1:01

$1.00

$1.50

VII. Being Beauteous

Track length2:34

$1.00

$1.50

VIII. Parade

Track length4:08

$1.00

$1.50

IX. Départ

Track length2:41

$1.00

$1.50

Britten: 3 Songs for "Les illuminations" (Orch. C. Matthews)

Work length8:58

$3.00

$4.50

Sandrine Piau
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

I. Phrase

Track length3:07

$1.00

$1.50

II. Aube

Track length0:52

$1.00

$1.50

III. À une raison

Track length4:59

$1.00

$1.50

Britten: Rondo concertante (Completed by C. Matthews)

Work length8:12

$2.00

$3.00

Rolf Hind
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

I. Allegro molto

Track length2:36

$1.00

$1.50

II. Lento

Track length5:36

$1.00

$1.50

Britten: In Memoriam Dennis Brain (Completed by C. Matthews)

Work length11:01

$2.50

$3.80

Michael Thompson, Richard Watkins, Peter Francomb, Chris Griffiths
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

I. Introduction

Track length9:21

$1.50

$2.30

II. Allegro

Track length1:40

$1.00

$1.50

Britten: Untitled Fragment

Work length2:13

$1.00

$1.50

Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

Britten: Variations for Piano (1965)

Work length6:27

$6.00

$9.00

Rolf Hind

I. Like an Improvisation

Track length1:13

$1.00

$1.50

II. —

Track length1:18

$1.00

$1.50

III. Quick & Light

Track length0:48

$1.00

$1.50

IV. —

Track length1:00

$1.00

$1.50

V. Quietly

Track length1:17

$1.00

$1.50

VI. Quick

Track length0:51

$1.00

$1.50

Britten: Movements for a Clarinet Concerto

Work length17:52

$3.50

$5.30

Michael Collins
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair

I. Molto allegro (Completed by C. Matthews)

Track length5:32

$1.00

$1.50

II. Vivace (After "Mazurka elegiaca") [Arr. C. Matthews]

Track length7:15

$1.50

$2.30

III. Passacaglia (After Fragment of "Sonata for Orchestra") [Arr. C. Matthews]

Track length5:05

$1.00

$1.50

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Recording of the Week, Unknown Britten

28th September 2009

NMC Records release a collection of rediscovered works by the British composer, including a clarinet concerto commission by Benny Goodman, and three songs originally intended for Les Illuminations.

This CD features eight premiere recordings:

• Three additional songs of Les Illuminations

• In memoriam Dennis Brain

• Rondo Concertante

• Elegy for Strings

• Variations for Solo Piano

• and the completion of Movements for a Clarinet Concerto.

The stunning performance of Les Illuminations by world-renowned soprano Sandrine Piau has been made possible thanks to the French label Naïve kindly releasing Sandrine from her exclusive recording contract for this CD. The ‘Clarinet Concerto’ was written for jazz star Benny Goodman, but Britten never completed it as the sketches were impounded by US Customs in 1941. It was Britten’s intention to resume work on the piece in 1943 but he never got round to it and so it remained a fragment, not performed until edited by Colin Matthews in 1990.

Britten intended the additional three songs recorded here—also setting Rimbaud—to be part of Les Illuminations. Sandrine Piau’s love affair with the music of Benjamin Britten blossomed when she was chosen to sing the role of Flora in Britten’s Turn of the Screw at Radio France.

In memoriam Dennis Brain for 4 horns, strings and tubular bells commemorates the great horn player for whom Britten wrote his Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. He died in a car crash in 1957.

Reviews

November 2009

Britten completed but didn't orchestrate the songs - 'Phrase', 'Aube' and 'À une raison'; Matthews matches them finely to the style of Illuminations. While the cycle is often associated with pears and other tenors… Piau is a worthy successor, cooler and less emotive than Pears, perhaps less nuanced but more naturally phrased, and simply more beautiful.

10th December 2009

Sandrine Piau makes a superb soloist – impeccable French, or course, but she brings so much more to bear with her cool, clear sound, and often seriously beautiful phrasing, floating ethereally to the centre of Rimbaud’s poetry...Buy this for Les Illuminations, but savour it for so many new discoveries.

Awards Issue 2009

All the performances are superb. Sandrine Piau's stylish and imaginative interpretation of Les illuminations is one of the best soprano versions on disc, in fact. Michael Collins's easy virtuosity in the Clarinet Concerto is a joy. And throughout, Thomas Zehetmair elicits razor-sharp, sensitively shaped playing from the Northern Sinfonia. In short, this is one of the most important Britten recordings in many a year.

25th September 2009

this performance, taken from a Northern Sinfonia concert with Sandrine Piau as the delightfully idiomatic soloist, includes as an appendix three further Rimbaud settings that Britten omitted from the final cycle and left in piano score, which have been orchestrated by Colin Matthews...lots of little insights into Britten's musical world.

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Unknown Britten

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Recording of the Week, Unknown Britten

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