Tippett: A Child of Our Time

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From just about every point of view this is an improvement on Colin Davis's recent Dresden Staatskapelle A Child of Our Time… The soloists are more roundly convincing… and yet they still aren't... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2008, 3 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Jun 2008
Catalogue No: LSO0670
Label: LSO Live
Length: 63 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

September 2008

Editor's Choice

Tippett: A Child of Our Time

Work length1:03:53

$14.20

$17.75

$20.60

Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra, Mihoko Fujimura, Steve Davislim, Matthew Rose, Indra Thomas

Nos. 1-2. The World Turns On Its Dark Side - Interludium

Track length8:12

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Nos. 3-5. Scene, Is Evil Then Good? - Chorus of the Oppressed, When Shall the Userers' City Cease

Track length6:03

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Nos. 6-7. I Have No Money for My Bread - How Can I Cherish My Man In Such Days

Track length6:19

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No. 8. A Spiritual, Steal Away

Track length2:07

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Nos. 9-15. A Star Rises in Mid-Winter - Scene, O My Son!

Track length6:36

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No. 16. A Spiritual, Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, Lord

Track length1:14

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Nos. 17-20. Scene, the Boy Becomes Desperate In His Agony - Men Were Ashamed of What Was Done

Track length3:15

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No. 21. A Spiritual of Anger, Go Down Moses

Track length2:52

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Nos. 22-24. The Boy Sings In His Prison, My Dreams Are All Shattered - the Dark Forces Rise Like a Flood

Track length5:40

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No. 25. A Spiritual, O, By and By

Track length1:13

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Nos. 26-27. The Cold Deepens, the Soul of Man

Track length6:27

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No. 28. Scene, the Words of Wisdom Are These - Praeludium

Track length5:36

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No. 29. General Ensemble, I Would Know My Shadow and My Light

Track length4:38

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No. 30. A Spiritual, Deep River

Track length3:41

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DSD recording, live at the Barbican December 2007

Reviews

August 2008

From just about every point of view this is an improvement on Colin Davis's recent Dresden Staatskapelle A Child of Our Time… The soloists are more roundly convincing… and yet they still aren't quite distinctive enough to stand up against the magnificent team on Davis's 1975 version (now on Decca).

2010

Four years after his Dresden version of A Childof Our Time, recorded live in the Semperoper (Profil, 3/08), Sir Colin Davis returned to the work in the very different environment of London's Barbican Hall. On this occasion the Classic Sound engineers and editors have managed a good blend of the intimate and the intense. Now and again a soloist may seem unduly reticent – perhaps a vocal problem on the day rather than a matter of recorded balance. But is there another recording that surpasses this one in the expressive power with which choral singing and orchestral playing combine to reinforce the timeless message of this most history-conscious work, rooted as it is in events just prior to the years of its composition (1939-41)? The formidable discipline and sensitivity of the London Symphony Chorus are immediately clear in the well defined dynamic contrasts of Part 1's first movement. While an imposing weight of sonority, as in the Spiritual 'Go Down Moses', can be guaranteed, there is a rare lightness of articulation in the passage beginning 'We are as seed before the wind', which returns in 'Nobody knows the trouble I see'.
Of the soloists, soprano Indra Thomas struggles with foggy vibrato while still managing to float some beautifully unstrained high notes in the final ensemble. Mihoko Fujimura, Steve Davislim and Matthew Rose are all excellent, and it's especially good to have a tenor who sounds young enough to embody the character of Herschel Grynszpan convincingly. Of course, some collectors will not be persuaded that Sir Colin could ever match, let alone outdo, his first, 1975 Philips recording of the work. Nevertheless, the enduring significance of the piece for him is palpable right through to the superbly shaped account of the final Spiritual, 'Deep River'. There are emotional depths here which turn this recording into something very special.

September 2008

There are emotional depths here which turn this recording into something very special.

13th July 2008

Davis’s latest recording, taken from two live performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, has its own flaws, and the team of soloists is uneven, with the rich-voiced, impassioned bass, Matthew Rose, by far the most convincing. The tenor, Steve Davislim, is also good, but the two women, Indra Thomas and Mihoko Fujimura, lack the right sort of intensity. The orchestral playing is superb, the choral singing gutsy and confident.

11th July 2008

Colin Davis's revival of A Child of Our Time at the Barbican last December, ranked, unquestionably, among his most formidable achievements. That its transfer to LSO Live is less than ideal is due to the actual recording, which persistently emphasises clarity at the expense of weight...Davis conducts like one possessed, and the playing is exemplary, though the LSO Chorus, matchlessly intense in this work, sometimes sounds distant. The recording also does the soloists few favours - but if you're not moved to tears by Indra Thomas in the spirituals and Steve Davislim singing I Have No Money for My Bread, I suspect you of lacking soul and conscience. Awesome, but also very flawed.

Tippett: A Child of Our Time

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