Britten: Canticle V: The Death of St. Narcissus, Op. 89

While Pears's recording of Britten folk song arrangements with piano is well known, a beautiful recording he made of songs with harp, featuring Osian Ellis, is altogether rarer and exhumed here on CD for the first time. Ellis's Decca recording of the Suite for Harp also makes its first appearance, as does the Wilbye Consort's of Sacred and Profane and other Britten choral works to make up two very well-filled CDs.

‘Still Falls the Rain’ is the second solo recording by American tenor Nicholas Phan, whose debut Winter Words (AV2238) was internationally acclaimed. Anticipating Britten's centenary in 2013, the follow up features The Heart of the Matter with Scottish actor Alan Cumming narrating.

‘Winter Words’, last year’s solo debut album by American tenor Nicholas Phan, was one of the most lauded releases of the year. Phan (pronounced pahn) follows up with Still Falls the Rain, another intelligently devised album of Britten’s songs, this time focusing on works inspired by the composer’s key collaborators including horn player Dennis Brain, harpist Osian Ellis and poet Edith Sitwell. As with Winter Words (AV2238), Phan successfully intersperses great song cycles with popular folk song arrangements. The rarely recorded The Heart of the Matter includes the narration of Sitwell’s poems by Scottish actor Alan Cumming.

Commemorating the relationship between Peter Pears and harpist Osian Ellis, this new recording of Britten’s late works features a world premiere recording of Five Songs from Harmonia Sacra and are performed on harp by acclaimed Canadian tenor Lawrence Wiliford and principal harpist from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Jennifer Swartz.

The recorded legacy of the great English tenor Peter Pears is substantial and wide-ranging. It embraces Baroque repertory and Elizabethan songs as well as a vast amount of twentieth-century English music and German Lieder.

This anniversary collection features Pears in a wide selection of this repertory and it also charts his career as a recording artist from landmark recordings such as the first recording of Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (made in 1944) through to Britten's Canticle V The Death of St Narcissus (composed in 1974), recorded near the end of his career in 1976.

Many recordings included here appear on CD for the first time as international releases. Performances of Vaughan Williams’ On Wenlock Edge, and of Tippett’s Songs for Ariel , are of especial interest, and in a different vein, Pears sings Lutoslawski’s Paroles tissées, which he commissioned.

A true rarity is the first ever release of Schubert's Ganymed.

Packaging is cap box; 28-page booklet features a new essay on Pears by George Hall.