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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Britten Songs
This release is one of three new recordings issued in 2013 by EMI & Virgin Classics in honour of Britten's 100th birthday. Ian Bostridge, the internationally acclaimed tenor whose "attention to the text always matches Britten's own scrupulous word-setting", has recorded this album of songs by Benjamin Britten accompanied by Antonio Pappano. Featured are works he has never before recorded: 'Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo', 'Hölderlin Fragments', 'Songs From the Chinese', 'Winter Words' and Four English Songs from the last cycle 'Who are These Children?'. “an intoxicating contribution to the composer’s centenary.” Financial Times, 20th April 2013 “the English tenor has brought special qualities to Britten on disc: his cut-glass diction and an individuality of timbre that echoes the singer for whom the composer wrote most of his songs, his life partner, Peter Pears, without remotely resembling him...here he proves as compelling as this music’s creator” Sunday Times, 19th May 2013 “besides his usual intelligence and personality, Bostridge has acquired a richness of timbre that, combined with his control of vibrato, is invaluable in the Six Hölderlin Fragments...[Songs from the Chinese] becomes an unexpected highlight.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2013 | 
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| |  | Britten: My Beloved is MineSong cycles by Benjamin Britten
The greatly sought-after tenor, James Gilchrist, continues his highly acclaimed exploration of British song with his new recording of Benjamin Britten works. His 2010 recording of Leighton Earth, Sweet Earth…(laudes terrae) and Britten Winter Words was called ‘outstandingly accomplished’ by Gramophone. ‘On This Island’ is strikingly fresh and Gilchrist sings these beautiful poems with a graceful insight. Contrasting this opening set, Gilchrist gives a moving and heartfelt performance of Britten’s dark and profound song cycle ‘The Holy Sonnets of John Donne’. My Beloved is Mine ends with what Peter Pears called ‘Britten’s finest piece of vocal music to date’; a psalm-like poem with energetically evolving rhythms and beautiful harmonies. James Gilchrist has appeared with many of the world’s prestigious ensembles and under several leading conductors; he recently performed with Retrospect Ensemble for their recording with Linn Records, J. S. Bach Easter & Ascension Oratorios. James is sought after for operatic roles, ensemble performances and as a respected recitalist. Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain's most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals. “His immaculate diction – in Italian as well as English – is more than ample compensation for a slight feeling that sometimes the vocal lines are treated with just a little too much respect...But Gilchrist's restraint also proves to be the perfect counterpart to Tilbrook's piano playing, which relishes every bit of the athleticism that Britten built into accompaniments that he wrote to play himself.” The Guardian, 2nd August 2012 **** “Gilchrist is a greatly sensitive interpreter, his tone liquid yet urgent, his diction immaculate and august, his choices admirable.” Sunday Times, 5th August 2012 “Gilchrist, well matched by by Anna Tilbrook's clean-cut playing, offers gentle sensitivity and words that are crystal clear...Well recorded, with a duo that is perfectly matched, this recital has its virtues. Even so, my preference is for a singer with richer vocal resources.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2012 “Gilchrist is as agile as his pianist and evidently attuned to the importance of her role...the mystic union of ground-bass piano with confident vocal line in the concluding 'Death, be not proud' set this interpretation of The Holy Sonnets on a footing with that of tenor Peter Pears and Britten...It's in the most introspective moments...the simple-seeming 'Nocturne' in On This Island, for instance...that Gilchrist's unique artistry is heard to best advantage.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 ***** “everything about it emanates thoughtfulness, intelligence and good design...His enunciation is superb throughout...[The Holy Sonnets] are given robust performances. These are full of passion and commitment, and are superbly communicated.” MusicWeb International, January 2013 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Britten: Complete Songs Volume 2
The second volume in the highly praised survey of all Britten’s songs for voice and piano. As before, the great song cycles rub shoulders with individual songs, and early works. There are world premier recordings here as well. Malcolm Martineau has gather together the cream of young British singers, and this second volume will be as eagerly awaited and successful as the first (ONYX4071). Philip Reid’s excellent booklet notes provide an incisive insight to Britten’s song writing – a form of composition that occupied the composer from his earliest compositions through to his last year. ‘This series promises to be a major addition to the Britten discography.’ Gramophone “Listening to this music leaves one in no doubt that Britten ranks among the very greatest song composers, blessed with an unerring instinct for matching word to note and the creation of poetic atmosphere, as well as producing some gloriously singable melodic lines.” The Telegraph, 3rd November 2011 “All the singers are supported by Malcolm Martineau's wonderfully characterised accompaniments...Allan Clayton and Elizabeth Atherton give superb accounts of the declamatory Michelangelo Sonnets and the settings of Auden's On This Island respectively, but Nicky Spence seems slightly self-conscious in the Scots dialect of the Soutar songs, and Benedict Nelson doesn't always summon sufficient weight of tone for the Blake cycle.” The Guardian, 24th November 2011 *** “it is fortuitous that such a range of talented young tenors is on hand...Whoever he is accompanying, pianist Malcolm Martineau is an expert guide. Though other individual recordings may be preferable, this second volume of Britten songs is again greater than the sum of its parts.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2012 “It's good to hear four quite different tenors responding to the song-cycles written for Peter Pears, and recreating each one in a totally distinctive way. Allan Clayton's feisty tenor takes on the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, his voice both heroic and intimate. Nicky Spence's 'Who are these Children?' is the outstanding performance of this volume: he really sells these wonderful settings of the pacificist poet William Soutar, characterising their compassion.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 **** | | Onyx - ONYX4079 (CD - 2 discs) Normally: $25.25 Special: $12.62 |
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| |  | Britten: Song Cycles
Vintage recordings of Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten (Winter Words and The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo) and the 1953 recording of the Serenade with Dennis Brain. Newly re-mastered. “Peter Pears has perhaps never done anything finer than his performance of Winter Words...[He] has a voice of unmistakeable individuality and one which he has made responsive to all demands on it. His legato, his florid passages, his soft high notes...his instinct for words and the phrase, all these give unique pleasure to the hearer...Britten's genius for accompaniment is well known; and the recording is of the very highest quality.” Gramophone Magazine | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Benjamin Britten - Song Cycles
Britten: | Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op. 22 Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) Winter Words, Op. 52 Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) Who are these children?, Op. 84 Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) Let the florid music praise! (from On this Island) Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) Tit for Tat John Shirley-Quirk (baritone), Benjamin Britten (piano) | Purcell: | Sweeter than Roses (from Pausanius, the Betrayer of his Country, Z585) realised Benjamin Britten Peter Pears (tenor), James Bowman (countertenor), John Shirley-Quirk (baritone) When the cock begins to crow, ZD172 realised Benjamin Britten Peter Pears (tenor), James Bowman (countertenor), John Shirley-Quirk (baritone) |
The names of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears are forever linked by their personal and creative partnership. Composer and interpreter have rarely enjoyed so long-standing or fruitful relationship. They met and became friends in 1937 while going through the papers of a mutual friend who had accidentally died. Within a couple of years, they had established a relationship that would last a lifetime and embrace virtually all aspects of their lives. These seminal recordings include the first release on CD of Who are these Children?, Tit for Tat and When the cock begins to crow, and re-introduces after a long absence from the catalogue, the Michelangelo Sonnets and Winter Words. A bonus is the only song from On this island that Pears/Britten recorded for Decca - 'Let the florid music praise'. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Benjamin Britten Plays & Conducts
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| |  | Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears: The Early HMV Recordings
Britten and Pears early collaborations for HMV display an infectious vigour. Britten’s own works, the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op.22 and the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35. are given definitive readings. Also included are folk song settings by Britten, Grainger and Copland and the programme concludes with two of Schubert’s most famous songs ‘Im Fruhling’ and ‘Auf der Bruck’. Essential listening for fans of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. | | | Usually despatched in 8 - 10 working days. |
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| |  | Matthew Polenzani & Julius Drake: Songs by Schubert, Beethoven, Britten & Hahn
Wigmore Hall Live’s unrivalled reputation for capturing the world’s best song recitals is continued in its forthcoming October release from the distinguished lyric tenor, Matthew Polenzani. Often referred to as one of the most gifted and distinguished lyric tenors of his generation, Matthew Polenzani has been praised for the artistic versatility and fresh lyricism that he brings to concert and operatic appearances on leading international stages. He has performed, among many others, opposite Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko and Diana Damrau, and under the baton of Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez and Riccardo Muti. He will shortly be performing at Covent Garden in 'Don Giovanni'. In this, his debut Wigmore Hall recital, Polenzani brings together the works of Hahn, Beethoven, Britten and Schubert, including 'An die ferne Geliebte' and the 'Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo', alongside leading piano-accompanist, Julius Drake. Composed in April 1816, 'An die ferne Geliebte', opus 98, is Beethoven's only song cycle. Also appearing on the release are five examples of some of Schubert’s most-loved works, composed in the great age of song. Britten’s 'Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo' and are given added poignancy as they are said to represent a thinly-veiled expression of Britten’s affection for Peter Pears. Finally, the album features Hahn’s album of songs, 'Venezia: Chansons en dialecte vénitien'. Described by the composer as both “light and melancholy”, they received their premiere in Venice, 1901. “Polenzani is his own man and sings [the Michelangelo sonnets] with much sensitivity. The third of them, 'Veggio co' bei vostri occhi', is intimately restrained...yet [he] contrasts his vocalism when needed by the words and the poet's thoughts...Both artists catch the humour in [Hahn's] rollicking 'Che peca'. All the songs, whoever the composer, find worthy advocates in Polenzani and Drake.” International Record Review, January 2012 “Drake, everywhere a perceptive and supportive accompanist, gives time and space for [the Beethoven] to breathe, and links them with beautifully played preludes and postludes. Polenzani's is a sensitive, outstanding performance...the light suppleness of his tenor facilitates an ardent, word-lively performance of Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2012 *** | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | Winter Words: Songs By Britten
Nicholas Phan (tenor) & Myra Huang (piano) American tenor Nicholas Phan makes his solo recording debut with a deeply personal approach to the songs of Britten. ‘Winter Words’ is the solo debut release by American tenor Nicholas Phan. The recording was made in the wake of a recital tour in 2010-11 which culminated in his Carnegie debut at Weill Hall. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera studio Nick has performed with the opera companies of Los Angeles and Seattle, symphony orchestras of Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco, and the Marlboro, Ravinia and Edinburgh Festivals, among others. He sang in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez which won a Grammy Award. Nick presents a deeply personal perspective of Britten’s music, encompassing his own performing experiences to audience reaction. He says: “I’ve been a fan of Britten since playing his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra with my youth orchestra in Detroit as a teenage violinist. But my great devotion to his music increased to an obsession when an excellent pianist and good friend asked if I’d perform with her at a small university in Missouri. She suggested Winter Words, saying, “I think these would sound really great in your voice, and I’ve wanted to play them for ages, so indulge me.” I researched and played through Britten’s settings of Hardy’s poems and before long, I was hooked.” Approaching the performance in a small Midwestern town with some trepidation (“how would they react?”), Nick describes the audience’s overwhelmingly positive response: “my favourite piece on the program … the most lasting impression.” Such is the enduring quality of Britten’s sophisticated yet direct song writing, of which Nick is a leading torchbearer. “Phan has both the introspection and the power for this idiosyncratic approach to Italian fire...The Hardy tableaux of Winter Words are all atmospherically evoked alongside the best...but what wins this disc its five stars is the spacious, deeply moving delivery of my favourite among all the folksong settings, 'The Last Rose of Summer'...[Huang] always catches the distant gleam and proves a superb ghost-partner in 'The Ash-Grove'” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ****/***** “Phan's fresh tenor voice, Myra Huang's intelligent pianism and the recording's warm acoustic conspire to make an inviting, distinctive recording...Phan's upper range blooms, not by fanning out at the top but in a more integrated emergence of vocal brightness...his main strength is spinning a long, expressive line in ways that seem to confide in the listener.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2012 “Others have identified Phan, a young American tenor, as a star in the making, and this fine Britten recital confirms it. The voice is graceful, mellifluous and durable, but behind it lie sharp intelligence, poetic insight and a confident individuality, allowing him a deeply personal response to the Hardy cycle Winter Words. In the Seven Sonnets, Phan is equally at ease with the demands of the bel canto devices.” Sunday Times, 2nd October 2011 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Britten Abroad
Britten's settings of Italian, Russian, French and German, performed here by Susan Gritton, Mark Padmore and Iain Burnside are certainly amongst the most distinctive and very finest examples of his art, each fashioned specifically for a much-loved and favoured artist. The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo were completed in America in October 1940 and were the first songs written specifically for Britten's life-long partner and principal interpreter, the tenor Peter Pears, to whom they are dedicated and unquestionably addressed. Britten and Pears premiered the Michelangelo Sonnets at the Wigmore Hall on 23 September 1942, the first of many memorable appearances they were to make in London's premiere recital hall over the next three decades. The Poet's Echo was written during a holiday that Britten and Pears spent in the Soviet Union with Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich in August 1965.The cycle is dedicated to 'Galya and Slava' and was first performed by the dedicatees in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, on 2 December 1965; they gave the UK premiere on 2 July the following year, in London's Royal Festival Hall. Um Mitternacht was written around 1960. It was first performed by the soprano Lucy Shelton and pianist Ian Brown at the 1992 Aldeburgh Festival and only entered the repertory with the publication of The Red Cockatoo & Other Songs by Faber Music in 1994. It is unique in that it's Britten's only setting of Goethe, an anthology of whose verse he received around this time from his friend Prince Ludwig of Hesse and the Rhine, the dedicatee of the final song-cycle on the present disc, the Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente. Britten and Pears recorded them for the BBC Third programme on 20 October 1958. “The tenor Padmore is easy over the horn-blown heights in Veggio co'bei. Gritton is more shrill and rather overdoes the Pushkin poems The Poet's Echo, although she shows agonised restraint in the paranoid last...Gritton all but steals the album with the haunting Il est Quelqu'un. Burnside gives witty impressions of a spinning wheel, insomniac's clock and Messiaen-like nightingale at the keys.” The Times, 24th May 2008 *** “With the ever-inventive Iain Burnside at the piano, revelling in Britten's keyboard felicities, the vocal honours are shared evenly by soprano and tenor. Mark Padmore is commanding in the Italianate, almost bel canto style of the Michelangelo sonnets, and Susan Gritton's rich-hued timbre and linguistic mastery reap rewards in the Russian and German cycles.” The Telegraph, 17th May 2008 “Tenor Mark Padmore takes the Michelangelo cycle by the throat, and wrings out of it a powerfully eloquent performance, and he's equally persuasive in the Hölderlin settings, while soprano Susan Gritton does not attempt the histrionics that Vishnevskaya brought to the Pushkin songs, but invests them instead with genuinely credible dramatic intensity. Iain Burnside is a model accompanist. An outstanding disc.” The Guardian, 30th May 2008 ***** “What an inspired idea not only to bring together Britten's mature foreign-language songs, but also to have the programme shared by two of Britain's keenest and brightest singers. …delight and spiritual depths go hand in hand.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 ***** “…how these two singers have grown, both in voice and artistry. Padmore has now quite a full-bodied ring to his voice at a forte (hear him in the strong affirmations of the last sonnet), and Gritton commands an aristocratic concentration of tone, unshakeably firm and precise in its placing. Iain Burnside more than copes with the formidable technical difficulties, and in many songs... we bless the imaginative touch.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008 “Mark Padmore's singing of the Michaelangelo Sonnets has all the grace of the young Pears without his mannerisms … Iain Burnside is a tower of strength throughout” Sunday Telegraph “Britten is 'abroad' here in the sense that he is occupied with foreign texts. He is also away in time. The breadth of cultural reference is large, involving four languages, none of them his own.
The recital, then, challenges its listeners as well as its performers.
And how these two singers have grown, both in voice and artistry. The languages assist in the sense we have of them as being transformed.
Mark Padmore in Italian, Susan Gritton in Russian show themselves in new guises. Each is ines- capably performing in the shadow of a great original; but even as (in our minds) we hear Pears and Vishnevskaya, recognising that their voices are written into these songs, we can acknowledge these younger artists as worthy successors, and (to be honest) part of us is glad to be hearing them instead. Padmore has now quite a full-bodied ring to his voice at a forte (hear him in the strong affirmations of the last sonnet), and Gritton commands an aristocratic concentration of tone, unshakeably firm and precise in its placing.
Iain Burnside more than copes with the formidable technical difficulties, and in many songs (for instance, the last of the Pushkin poems with its ticking clock, or the spinning-wheel in 'Fileuse' mingling past and present in the old woman's thoughts) we bless the imaginative touch.
Recorded sound is fine, as are John Evans's introductory notes.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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Gramophone Magazine
