Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35

“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

“Martineau paces his survey of Britten’s songbook with the same lightly worn expertise he brings to his accompaniments, alternating lighter and darker material, innocent and knowing, in a way that maintains the listener’s interest.” Financial Times, 28th May 2011 ***

“Martineau has gathered a gratifyingly formidable array of young British singing talent. Ben Johnson is commanding in an urgent, passionate reading of The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Andrew Tortise conveys rapturously intense emotions in Canticle I...Perhaps the best is left until last, when Robin Tritschler gives a fresh-sounding Winter Words.” Sunday Times, 29th May 2011 ****

“The John Donne sonnets (Ben Johnson) and The Poet's Echo (Katherine Broderick) are very fine, but the most compelling track is "Canticle 1", a masterpiece powerfully delivered by Andrew Tortise.” The Observer, 12th June 2011

“James Geer, a tenor with an instinct for the inflection of poetry that matches the composer's own, offers 'A Dirge'...Katherine Broderick brings by turns a forlorn beauty and a fiery plangency to the Pushkin settings of The Poet's Echo...We have a tiny and tantalising glimpse of tenor Nicky Spence...O that I had ne'er been married...a touching and memorable gem within this auspicious first volume.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 ****

“Among so many potential successors to Peter Pears...two tenors stand out: Robin Tritschler, who gives a performance of exceptional tenderness in the ever-popular Winter Words, and Ben Johnson, whose string and intense singing of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne nails his colours to the Britten mast with impressive authority...As always, Malcolm Martineau's accompaniments are a constant source of inspiration on the journey.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2011

“Padmore's sound is more beautiful and easily expressive than Pears's ever was, but he never imposes his own personality too forcefully, content to let the natural inflections of the bespoke vocal lines in the Donne cycle follow their own course.” The Guardian, 26th June 2009 ****

“Before life and after is the more consoling conclusion to the Hardy cycle, and Padmore lavishes a palette of tone colour to match or even outshine Pears here. His English diction has an unfussy naturalness, and Vignoles captures the descriptive imagery of the piano parts with their descriptions of the train whistle and the boy’s violin. Padmore’s voice now sounds dark for Purcell, but the three Britten realisations suit it well, and the disc is rounded off by five of Britten’s most attractive folk-song arrangements.” Sunday Times, 5th July 2009 *****

“Padmore is on happier ground with the idiosyncratic Purcell realisations, especially in a gem of an 'Evening Hymn', while the Hardy vignettes of Winter Words bring an ideally subtle sense of atmosphere from both singer and pianist.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2009 ****

“The Holy Sonnets of John Donne were composed in 1945, soon after Britten's visit to German concentration camps, and the stark immediacy of that experience can be heard in the composer's own recordings. Padmore and Roger Vignoles, his warm-toned accompanist, take a more reflective line. ...the core of the cycle is some heartfelt singing in the sixth and most beautiful setting, "Since she whom I loved". The vivid picture-painting of Winter Words helps make it probably Britten's most popular song-cycle with piano. Several of the Thomas Hardy poems evoke a time of innocence now lost, a familiar Britten theme, and the evocative performance by Padmore and Vignoles captures that sense of longing particularly well.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2009

“This declamatory, religious-themed repertoire fits Padmore like a glove, marrying as it does his enduring success as a performer of early sacred music with his newer success as a chamber recitalist...A satisfying recital on every level.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 21st December 2009

“Bostridge is in the royal line of Britten's tenor interpreters. Indeed his imaginative response to words and music may come closer than any to Pears himself. He's heard here in a veritable cornucopia of mostly unfamiliar and unknown songs (the Donne cycle apart), mainly from the earliest period of Britten's song-writing career when his inspiration was perhaps at its most free and spontaneous. The three settings from Ronald Duncan's This way to the Tomb nicely match that poet's florid, vocabulary-rich style as Britten was to do again two years later in Lucretia, with 'Night', based on a B-minor ground bass, a particularly arresting piece. The Auden settings, roughly contemporaneous with On this Island, all reflect Britten's empathy with the poet at that time. The third, To lie flat on the back, evinces Britten's gift for writing in racy mode, as does When you're feeling like expressing your affection, very much in the style of Cabaret Songs. Much deeper emotions are stirred by the two superb Beddoes settings (Wild with passion and If thouwilt ease thine heart), written when the composer and Pears were on a ship returning home in 1942. The red cockatoo itself is an early setting of Waley to whom Britten returned in Songs fromthe Chinese. All these revelatory songs are performed with full understanding and innate beauty by Bostridge and Johnson, who obviously have a close artistic rapport. The Donne Sonnets are as demanding on singer and pianist as anything Britten wrote, hence their previously small representation in the catalogue. Both artists pierce to the core of these electrifying songs, written after, and affected by, Britten's visit to Belsen with Menuhin in 1945. The recording catches the immediacy of these riveting performances. A richly satisfying issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“a definitive performance, superbly captured by producer John Culshaw. Peter Pears's Captain Vere oversees matters masterfully, but it's Peter Glossop and Michael Langdon as the pitiable Budd and odious Claggart who really drive the action.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2012

“Billy Budd is remarkable in having been composed for male voices, yet not once is there any lack of colour or variety. Britten marvellously supports the tenor, baritone and bass voices with extraordinary flair in the use of brass and woodwind.
This was the last operatic recording John Culshaw produced for Decca and he again showed himself unsurpassed at creating a theatrical atmosphere in the studio. Although there have been several striking and brilliant stage productions of this opera in recent years, not to mention Nagano's recording, it must also be said that both technically and interpretatively this Britten/Culshaw collaboration represents the touchstone for any that follows it, particularly in the matter of Britten's conducting.
Where Britten is superb is in the dramatic tautness with which he unfolds the score and his unobtrusive highlighting of such poignant detail as the use of the saxophone after the flogging.
But most of all, he focuses with total clarity on the intimate human drama against the background of life aboard the ship.
And what a cast he had, headed by Peter Pears as Vere, conveying a natural authoritarianism which makes his unwilling but dutiful role as 'the messenger of death' more understandable, if no more agreeable. Peter Glossop's Billy Budd is a virile performance, with nothing of the 'goody-goody' about him. Nor is there any particular homo-eroticism about his relationship with Michael Langdon's black-voiced Claggart: it's a straight conflict between good and evil, and all the more horrifying for its stark simplicity.
Add to these principals John Shirley-Quirk, Bryan Drake and David Kelly as the officers, Owen Brannigan as Dansker and Robert Tear and Benjamin Luxon in the small roles of the novice and his friend, and the adjective 'classic' can be applied to this recording with a clear conscience. Also on the discs are two of Britten's most sombre song cycles, the Donne Sonnets and the Blake Songs and Proverbs, the former with Pears, the latter with Fischer-Dieskau, and both incomparably accompanied by Britten. They make ideal complements to Billy Budd. This is without doubt a vintage set.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Britten himself has an outstanding cast, with Glossop a bluff, heroic Billy and Langdon a sharply dark-toned Claggart, making these symbol-figures believable. Magnificent sound, and the many richly imaginative strokes - atmospheric as well as dramatic - are superbly managed.” Penguin Guide ***