Bennett, R R: Tom O’Bedlam’s Song

These recordings, made over the space of a decade from March 1954 to December 1964, capture Peter Pears in the high summer of his career and at the peak of his powers, a period roughly framed by some of the highlights of his partnership with Benjamin Britten: the creation of the character of Peter Quint in the composer’s The Turn of the Screw in Venice in September 1954 and the euphoric response to the first performance in 1962 of the War Requiem, one of the great events of post-war English musical life. The title ‘An Anthology of English Song’ was chosen by Decca for a projected three volumes featuring Pears. The first, with Julian Bream, included Renaissance lute songs by Dowland, Morley and others. The second was presumably intended to included 18th and 19th-century titles but was never made. The third, made in 1955, consisted of 20th-century English song, and much of this material appears on CD for the first time [CD2: 10-21].

A year earlier, Pears and Britten recorded nine of Britten’s folk song arrangements; these particular recordings (made in the same sessions as those for Winter Words) too receive their first release on CD [CD2: 1-9].

More British song was recorded with Britten in 1963 and with pianist Viola Tunnard (who worked closely with Britten in the 1960s, particularly on the Church Parables) in 1964. Of special interest too, will be works Pears commissioned from contemporary composers including the Cycle for Declamation by the South-African-born Priaulx Rainier, a testing tour de force for unaccompanied voice and Richard Rodney Bennett’s dramatic 1961 setting for voice and cello of the anonymous 17th-century ballad Tom O’Bedlam’s Song.

Bennett is renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works.

His film music includes scores for Far from the Madding Crowd, Murder on the Orient Express and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Richard Rodney Bennett has long had a private passion for making collages (and knitting!) and the cover image on this CD is one of his creations, currently displayed at an exhibition of his work in Chelsea.

Born in Broadstairs, Kent, in 1936, he has lived in New York City since 1979. Richard Rodney Bennett received a CBE in 1977, and was knighted in 1998. Bennett studied with Pierre Boulez in Paris.

This new recording spans five decades of Bennett’s song-writing, cherry-picking some of his most accessible and lyrical pieces, from the melodic Songs Before Sleep, performed by Roderick Williams, to the 1920s dance rhythms of A History of the Thé Dansant, the dramatic and rarely-performed Tom O'Bedlam's Song for tenor and cello (written for Peter Pears) and the enchanting A Garland for Marjory Fleming.

A wonderful recording, stunningly performed by a collection of internationally acclaimed soloists.

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.