Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings, Op. 31

“wonderfully alert readings by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta” Financial Times, 23rd February 2013

“Hannigan brings to the text the dramatic energy she has to burn in her championship of Ligeti and Boulez, while the conductorless orchestra and soloist (herself sometimes a conductor) sound a natural fit...[in the Serenade] both soloists play their parts quite straight...An enjoyable and carefully balanced CD” Gramophone Magazine, March 2013

“Gilchrist’s Serenade, with Jasper de Waal the stupendous horn soloist, is one of the best things the English tenor has done on disc — Pears-like in its intensity and crystalline diction. The Sinfonietta’s strings have a whale of a time as a band of wannabe Paganinis in the Aria Italiana of the Bridge Variations.” Sunday Times, 3rd March 2013

“Hannigan brings a fined-down intensity to the more hushed Rimbaud settings such as 'Being Beauteous', but elsewhere her tone tends to flutter under pressure...Gilchrist, by contrast, sounds at home in the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings...and while his slightly reedy timbre sounds very different to Peter Pears, he brings equally valid insights into this iconic cycle.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 ***

“The strings were absolutely beautiful, transients and attacks were sharp, voices were natural, and the totality of the experience was musical and satisfying in every way...Frankly, I can’t imagine recorded music sounding much bette” Audiophile Audition, April 2013

“Candida Thompson’s Amsterdam Sinfonietta disc is pretty special – vibrant, incisive and colourful...Hannigan’s account of Les Illuminations is strong, her quickfire delivery in Parade a highlight...Gilchrist’s vibrato is strong but totally idiomatic, matched by Jasper der Waal’s bright-toned, very European horn sound.” The Arts Desk, 27th April 2013

“so tender and piercing that you really do seem to be listening to these song cycles anew...Padmore’s tenor audibly sports some family resemblances [to Pears], though he’s less precious than Pears, with a conversational ease when singing pianissimo never mastered by Britten’s love and muse. These are intensely sensitive and poetic readings, strengthened further by Stephen Bell’s clean and lyrical horn” The Times, 4th May 2012 *****

“Padmore proves to be a more convincing interpreter of Finzi than he is of Britten...there remains something rather neutral and restrained about his approach at moments when the music would really benefit from a firmer grip. In Dies Natalis, though, he shows that grip – it's a wonderfully muscular performance, beautifully judged and shaded, set off by suitably rapturous string playing.” The Guardian, 3rd May 2012 ***

“It was high time Mark Padmore, one of our most thoughtful tenors, set down his interpretation of the “Serenade” – softer-grained than we might have expected from a singer of such probing spirit and dramatic antennae, and softer-edged than the orchestral accompaniment from the Britten Sinfonia, whose horn player, Stephen Bell, proves a robust soloist.” Financial Times, 12th May 2012 ***

“the sense of the poems across with extra immediacy, as if Padmore has read the texts many times over before fitting them to the music. There is much beauty - not perhaps in the purely vocal sense...but in the marriage of words and music...Highly recommended.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2012

“[Padmore's] not found wanting in the “Nocturne for tenor, seven obbligato instruments & strings”, in which he ably negotiates Shelley's reverie, Wordsworth's melodrama and Tennyson's “thunders of the upper deep”; the “Serenade for tenor, horn & strings” is equally impressive...“Dies Natalis”, however, offers too stark a contrast to the otherwise elegaic tone.” The Independent, 19th May 2012

“The performance of Nocturne is the highpoint: a wide-eyed, variegated account from singer, obbligato instrumentalists and orchestra alike.” classicalsource.com

“Apart from the sheer beauty of his timbre, Padmore and his sympathetic accompanists have the full measure of Britten’s genius, and the readings are unlikely to be bettered for years to come.” Cd Choice

“Padmore's singing is very loving indeed, but in places I can't help feeling that it's a case of 'less is more'. The Britten Sinfonia and instrumental soloists are admirably attuned to Padmore's approach...Padmore is more successful in the exquisite Dies Natalis, where a more extrovert approach really pays off.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2012 ***/****

“Deeply intense, questing performance of two of Britten's great orchestral song-cycles, matched by the players with whom Padmore has rehearsed, workshopped and toured these works extensively. The Finzi is much more than just a filler...this is the masterly performance is deserves.” Classical Music, 5th May 2012 ****

“Padmore’s new recording is terrific - his voice is expressive, beautiful and terrifying by turns...Bell’s performance is spectacular...Padmore sings with such sweetness that you’ll convince yourself that Finzi was an underrated genius.” The Arts Desk, 16th June 2012

“Peerless tenor extends the Peter Pears legacy into a new century.” New Zealand Herald, August 2012

“He sings with less of the honeyed beauty that he is famous for and more incisive bite, which works for some songs, such as the Dirge, but not so well for others, such as the opening Pastoral. However, this does have the advantage of lending his word-painting that extra edge...Both playing and singing are at their most alluring in the concluding Keats Sonnet, seductive and beautiful with a hint of danger, leading wonderfully into the softly dying horn epilogue.” MusicWeb International, August 2012

“a most lovely piece of singing … ‘[his] clear diction and sense of word values ensures that justice is done to both poetry and music’” Gramophone Magazine (Vaughan Williams)

“[it] is performed by them with a perfection that must have made the composer feel that his every intention has been realised. Dennis Brain’s tone is ravishingly beautiful, and – one out of many points of superb technical skill – the way he plays the high note near the end of the Prologue and Epilogue leaves one speechless with admiration” … “Dennis Brain – well, he was incomparable, that's all” Gramophone Magazine (Britten: Serenade)

“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

“Some of Britten's richest vocal chamber pieces, by splendidly idiomatic performers are followed on disc 2 by slightly less exceptional orchestral performances. Still, very good value.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2009 ****

“Unless one is allergic to the mono sound, at Eloquence price anyone can afford this disc – either as a first foray into this repertoire or as a complement to other versions.” MusicWeb International

“Dennis Brain's horn playing is magical...with Peter Pears superb in both these works, fresher than in the famous stereo versions under the direction of the composer. Goossens's conducting cannot be faulted - it is highly sensitive and strikingly alert - and the Decca sound is exceptionally good for its period.” Penguin Guide, 2010

“Best of all is Nocturne, more spartan and enigmatic, about which he makes some very perceptive comments and where he seems more engaged; the anguished 'Prelude' is fiercely impressive. So are Rattle and the Berlin players, throughout - almost glassily beautiful, without being overly cool, and quite passionately paced.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2005 ***

“This recording offers a profoundly considered and technically immaculate traversal of Britten's three great and varied cycles for tenor and orchestra, conceived with Pears's voice in mind.
Authoritative as the recordings by composer and tenor may be, there is plenty of room for new insights into such complex and inspired scores.
Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured – allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert – this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.
Not that the accounts of the earlier cycles are far behind in going to the heart of the matter.
Bostridge catches all the fantasy and irony of Lesilluminations and projects the text with a biting delivery that stops just the right side of caricature.
Rattle and his orchestra are once again aware of Britten's subtleties of rhythm and instrumentation.
The Serenade, most easily accessible of the three works, demonstrates the advantages of recording after live performances. Everything seems fresh-minted and immediate, nowhere more so than in Radek Baborák's bold yet sensitive horn playing. Some of the verbal overemphases that are now part of Bostridge's vocal persona might not have been approved by the composer but for the most part they second the plangent beauty of his voice, which is evident throughout these very personal and satisfying interpretations. Bostridge writes illuminating notes in the booklet, too, adding to the disc's value.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Tenor, conductor and orchestra combine to offer inspired readings. Bostridge's particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured - allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert - this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005

“Bostridge proves an ideal interpreter of Britten's often taxing orchestral song-cycles...With Radek Baborák playing the horn obbligato with wonderful sophistication in the Serenade, the clarity of each of these masterly works is enhanced... Bostridge's word-painting is masterly throughout, matching the example of Peter Pears.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****

“Christoph Prégardien has an ideally light and sweet tenor which, even in the high tessitura of the Lyke-Wake Dirge from the Serenade, shows no strain whatsoever...he is totally in tune with the idiom.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ***

“Pears, as always, is the ideal interpreter, the composer a most efficient conductor, and the fiendishly difficult obbligato parts are played superbly.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****