Britten: Now the Great Bear and Pleiades (from Peter Grimes)
This page lists our only recording of Now the Great Bear and Pleiades (from Peter Grimes), by Benjamin Britten (1913-76) on CD & download (MP3 & FLAC).
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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.
Benjamin Britten: Serenade for tenor, horn & strings, Op.31
Prologue
Pastoral
Nocturne
Elegy
Dirge
Hymn
Sonnet
Epilogue
Benjamin Britten: Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op.22
Sonetto XVI
Sonetto XXXI
Sonetto XXX
Sonetto LV
Sonetto XXXVIII
Sonetto XXXII
Sonetto XXIV
Benjamin Britten, Myfanwy Piper: The Turn of the Screw, Op.54 / Act One
Interlude: Variation VII - Scene 8: At Night
Benjamin Britten, Ronald Duncan: The Rape of Lucretia, Op.37 / Act 1
Rome is now ruled by the Etruscan upstart
Benjamin Britten, Chester Miracle Plays (derived from): Canticle II, Abraham and Isaac, Op.51
Canticle II, Abraham and Isaac, Op.51
Benjamin Britten, Montagu Slater: Peter Grimes, Op.33 / Act 1
"Now the Great Bear and Pleiades"
"Old Joe has gone fishing"
"The bridge is down, we half swam over"
Benjamin Britten: War Requiem, Op.66 / Dies Irae
Move him into the sun
Benjamin Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op.61
1. Menschenbeifall
2. Die Heimat
3. Sokrates und Alcibiades
4. Die Jugend
5. Hälfte des Lebens
6. Die Linien des Lebens
Benjamin Britten, E.M. Forster, Eric Crozier: Billy Budd, Op.50 / Act 2
We committed his body to the deep
Benjamin Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op.35
1. O, my blacke Soule!
2. Better my heart
3. O might those sighes and teares
4. Oh, to vex me
5. What if this present
6. Since she whom I loved
7. At the round earth's imagined corners
8. Thou hast made me
9. Death, be not proud
Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream / Act 1
"How now my love?"
Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier: Albert Herring, Op.39 / Act 2
Albert the Good!
Benjamin Britten, Myfanwy Piper: Owen Wingrave, Op.85 / Act 1
May God bless the Queen
Benjamin Britten: Canticle V - The Death of Saint Narcissus, Op.89
Canticle V - The Death of Saint Narcissus, Op.89
Benjamin Britten, Myfanwy Piper: Death in Venice, Op.88 / Act 1
The boy, Tadzio, shall inspire me
Traditional: The Foggy Foggy Dew
The Foggy Foggy Dew
Traditional: A Brisk Young Widow
A Brisk Young Widow
Traditional: O Waly Waly
O Waly Waly
Traditional: Le Roi s'en va-t'en chasse
Le Roi s'en va-t'en chasse
Traditional: The Plough Boy
The Plough Boy
George Frideric Handel, John Gay: Acis and Galatea / Act 1
Lo! Here My Love!
Love In Her Eyes Sits Playing
John Dowland: I saw my Lady weep
I saw my Lady weep
Philip Rosseter: What then is love but mourning
What then is love but mourning
Francis Pilkington: Rest Sweet Nymphs
Rest Sweet Nymphs
Thomas Morley: It was a lover and his lasse
It was a lover and his lasse
John Dowland: In darkness let me dwell
In darkness let me dwell
Henry Purcell, Elkanah Settle: The Fairy Queen - Ed. Benjamin Britten, Imogen Holst and Peter Pears - Act 1
When a cruel long winter
Heinrich Schütz: Matthäus Passion
Jesus aber stund für dem Landpleger
Johann Sebastian Bach, Christian Friedrich Henrici: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 - Part Four - For New Year's Day
No.41 Aria (Tenor): "Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben"
Johann Sebastian Bach, Christian Friedrich Henrici: St. Matthew Passion / Part 2
No.53 Evangelist, Chorus I/II: "Da nahmen die Kriegsknechte"
Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B minor, BWV 232 - Sanctus
Benedictus
Johann Sebastian Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245 / Part Two
22 Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas to the judgement
Sir Edward Elgar, John Henry Newman: The Dream of Gerontius, Op.38 / Part 1
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus
Franz Schubert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Ganymed, D. 544 (Op.19/3)
Ganymed, D. 544 (Op.19/3)
Franz Schubert, Wilhelm Müller: Winterreise, D.911
1. Gute Nacht
5. Der Lindenbaum
11. Frühlingstraum
24. Der Leiermann
Franz Schubert, Wilhelm Müller: Die schöne Müllerin, D.795
1. Das Wandern
6. Der Neugierige
14. Der Jäger
16. Die liebe Farbe
Robert Schumann, Heinrich Heine: Dichterliebe, Op.48
1. Im wunderschönen Monat Mai
7. Ich grolle nicht
13. Ich hab' im Traum geweinet
16. Die alten, bösen Lieder
Robert Schumann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Szenen aus Goethes 'Faust' für Solostimmen, Chor und Orchester - Zweite Abteilung (Part Two)
Die ihr dies Haupt umschwebt im luft'gem Kreise
Hector Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op.25 / Partie 2: La fuite en Egypte
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Alfred Edward Housman: On Wenlock Edge
On Wenlock Edge
From Far, From Eve And Morning
Is My Team Ploughing?
Oh, When I Was In Love With You
Bredon Hill
Clun
Sir Michael Tippett: The Heart's Assurance
1. Song
2. The Heart's Assurance
3. Compassion
4. The Dancer
5. Remember your Lovers
Sir Michael Tippett, William Shakespeare: Songs for Ariel
Come Unto These Yellow Sands
Full Fathom Five
Where The Bee Sucks
Alan Bush: Voices of the Prophets - Words from Isaiah, Milton, Blake, Peter Blackman
For Behold, I Create A New Heaven And A New Earth
So At Length The Spirit Of Man Will Reach Out
Rouse Up
Over The Years I Hear Strong Voices Rise
Sir Michael Tippett, William Henry Hudson: Boyhood's End
What, then did I want? What did I ask to have?
To rise each morning and to look out on the sky...
To climb trees and put my hand down in the deep hot nest of the Bienteveo...
To ride at noon on the hottest days...
To lie on my back on the rust-brown grass in January
Frederick Delius, Robert Herrick: To Daffodils
To Daffodils
Ernest Moeran, Thomas Dekker: The Merry Month of May
The Merry Month of May
Bernard Van Dieren, Thomas Lovell Beddoes: Dream Pedlary
Dream Pedlary
Bernard Van Dieren, William Shakespeare: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Peter Warlock, Anonymous: Piggesnie
Piggesnie
Peter Warlock, Li-Po, translated L.Cramner-Byng: Along The Stream
Along The Stream
Percy Grainger: Bold William Taylor
Bold William Taylor
William Busch, William Blake: The Echoing Green
The Echoing Green
William Busch, William Blake: The Shepherd
The Shepherd
William Busch, Thomas Lovell Beddoes: If Thou Wilt Ease Thine Heart
If Thou Wilt Ease Thine Heart
William Busch, Thomas Campion: Come, O Come, My Life's Delight
Come, O Come, My Life's Delight
John Ireland, Alfred Edward Housman: The Land of Lost Content
The Lent Lily
Ladslove
Goal & Wicket
The Vain Desire
The Encounter
Epilogue
John Ireland, Aldous Huxley: The Trellis
The Trellis
Frank Bridge, Gerald Gould: 'Tis But A Week
'Tis But A Week
Frank Bridge, James Joyce: Goldenhair
Goldenhair
Frank Bridge, William Butler Yeats: When You Are Old
When You Are Old
Frank Bridge, Robert Bridges: So Perverse
So Perverse
Frank Bridge, H. Wolfe: Journey's End
Journey's End
Richard Rodney Bennett, Anonymous: Tom O'Bedlam's Song
Tom O'Bedlam's Song
John Ireland, Emily Brontë: Love And Friendship
Love And Friendship
John Ireland, Anonymous: Friendship in Misfortune
Friendship in Misfortune
John Ireland, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The One Hope
The One Hope
Priaulx Rainier, John Donne: Cycle for Declamation
Wee cannot bid the fruits
In the wombe of the earth
Nunc, lento sonitu
2011 edition
“so astute is his characterization and formidable his musical intelligence that he is able to portray the comic flavour of Albert Herring with as much conviction as the haunting melancholy of Death in Venice....All in all, a superb tribute to one of the most characterful and important singers of the twentieth century.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Prologue