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Britten: Billy Budd

Nathan Gunn (Billy), Ian Bostridge (Captain Vere), Gidon Saks (Claggart), Neal Davies (Redburn), Jonathan Lemalu (Flint), Matthew Rose (Ratcliffe), Andrew Kennedy (Novice), Matthew Best (Dansker), Roderick Williams (Novice's Friend)

London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Daniel Harding

…this is a good, often exciting performance, but Hickox and especially Britten are hard acts to follow. — BBC Music Magazine, October 2008, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 15th Sep 2008
Catalogue No: 5190392
Label: Erato
Length: 2 hours 45 minutes

Grammy Awards

52nd Awards (2009)

Best Opera Recording

This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched.

Britten: Billy Budd

Work length2:45:20

$54.60

$71.40

Daniel Harding/London Symphony Orchestra/Ian Bostridge/Nathan Gunn/John Relyea/Neal Davies/Jonathan Lemalu/Matthew Rose/Alasdair Elliott/Daniel Teadt/Matthew Best/Andrew Kennedy/Andrew Tortise/Mark Stone/Adam Green/Darren Jeffrey/Andrew Sta, Daniel Harding/London Symphony Orchestra/Nathan Gunn/John Relyea/Neal Davies/Jonathan Lemalu/Matthew Rose/Alasdair Elliott/Daniel Teadt/Matthew Best/Andrew Kennedy/Andrew Tortise/Mark Stone/Adam Green/Darren Jeffrey/Andrew Staples/Roderick, Ian Bostridge (vocals), Jonathan Lemalu (lead vocals), Matthew Rose (lead vocals), Alasdair Elliott (lead vocals), Daniel Teadt (lead vocals), Neal Davies (lead vocals), John Relyea (lead vocals), Nathan Gunn (lead vocals), Matthew Best (lead vocals), Andrew Kennedy (lead vocals), Andrew Staples (lead vocals), Roderick Williams (lead vocals), Hugo Shepherd (lead vocals), Darren Jeffery (lead vocals), Darren Jeffrey (performed by), Andrew Tortise (lead vocals), Mark Stone (lead vocals), Adam Green (lead vocals), London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Cullen, London Symphony Chorus
Daniel Harding
Recorded: 2007-12-09
Recording Venue: 5-9 December 2007, Recorded live at the Barbican, London

Prologue 'I am an old man' (Vere)

Track length5:00

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Pull, my bantams! Pull, my sparrow-legs!...Who did that? (First Mate et al)

Track length6:55

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Guard boat! Indomitable! (Maintop et al)

Track length3:29

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First man forward! (Claggart et al)

Track length2:10

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Your name? - Billy Budd, sir (Claggart / Billy / First Lieutenant / Sailing Master)

Track length2:43

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Billy Budd, king of the birds (Billy / Sailing Master / First Lieutenant / Ratcliffe)

Track length2:39

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I heard your honour! (Claggart / Squeak / Novice's Friend)

Track length3:53

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Come along kid! Come along! (Novice's Friend / Novice / Chorus)

Track length4:02

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Christ! The poor chap, the poor little runt! (Billy / Dansker / Red Whiskers / Donald)

Track length1:27

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What's that? What's those whistles? (Billy / Donald / Claggart / First Mate / Second Mate / Bosun)

Track length1:17

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Starry Vere we call him (Donald / Billy / Chorus / Red Whiskers / Dansker / Bosun)

Track length2:26

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Boy! - Yes sir! (Vere / Boy)

Track length3:32

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Gentlemen, the King! (Vere / First Lieutenant / Sailing Master)

Track length6:25

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Ay, at Spithead the men may have had their grievances (Vere / Sailing Master / First Lieutenant)

Track length1:01

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We are, sir. Claggart is an able one...Land on the port bow, sir (First Lieutenant / Vere / Sailing Master / Ratcliffe)

Track length6:51

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Blow her away, Blow her to Hilo (Red Whiskers / Chorus / Billy / Donald / Dansker)

Track length2:41

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We're off to Samoa (Donald / Chorus / Red Whiskers / Billy / Donald / Dansker)

Track length3:48

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Hi! You...a...a... (Billy et al)

Track length3:03

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Over the water, over the ocean (Chorus / Claggart)

Track length7:43

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Come here, Remember your promise (Claggart / Novice)

Track length5:43

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Billy!...Hist! Billy Budd! (Novice / Billy)

Track length4:13

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Dansker, old friend, glad to see you! (Billy / Dansker)

Track length4:48

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I don't like the look of the mist (Vere / First Lieutenant)

Track length1:48

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With great regret I must disturb your honour (Claggart / Vere)

Track length1:39

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Deck ahoy! Enemy sail on starboard bow! (Maintop et al)

Track length3:22

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Who'll volunteer to beard 'em in the smoke? (Vere et al.)

Track length7:46

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There you are again, Master-at-arms (Vere / Claggart / Boy)

Track length4:46

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O this cursed mist (Vere / First Lieutenant / Sailing Master / Ratcliffe)

Track length4:44

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Claggart, John Claggart, beware! I'm not so easily deceived (Vere / Billy)

Track length3:52

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Master-at-arms and foretopman, I speak to you both (Vere / Claggart / Billy)

Track length3:04

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God o' mercy! (Vere / Boy)

Track length1:58

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Gentlemen, William Budd here has killed the Master-at-arms (Vere / First Lieutenant / Sailing Master / Ratcliffe)

Track length1:23

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William Budd, you are accused... (First Lieutenant / Vere / Billy)

Track length5:47

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Poor fellow, who could save him? (First Lieutenant / Sailing Master / Ratcliffe)

Track length4:22

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I accept their verdict (Vere)

Track length7:15

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Look! Through the port comes the moon-shine astray! (Billy)

Track length5:44

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Here! Baby! (Dansker / Billy)

Track length3:58

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And farewell to ye, old Rights o' Man! (Billy)

Track length5:18

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Interlude

Track length3:08

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"According to the Articles of War..." (All except Vere)

Track length2:02

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Down all hands! And see that they go! (First Lieutenant et al)

Track length2:50

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We committed his body to the deep (Vere)

Track length4:45

$1.30

$1.70

About
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About

After the award-winning recording of Britten’s Turn of the Screw, released on Virgin Classics in 2002, Daniel Harding and Ian Bostridge meet again around Britten in his great masterpiece, Billy Budd. This new recording is a new asset to the label, which has planned a complete Britten opera cycle.

The opera, in its definitive 2-act version, was recorded during the 2 concert performances at the Barbican Hall on 7th & 9th December 2007. As principal guest conductor, Daniel Harding conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. The all-male cast boasts, along with Ian Bostridge as Captain Vere, American baritone Nathan Gunn in the role of Billy Budd, and Israeli bass-baritone, Gidon Saks, portraying the fiendish Claggart. EMI artist Jonathan Lemalu also contributes to the cast.

“Billy Budd is one of Britten’s greatest masterpieces, containing three of his major operatic roles. Set amid the claustrophobia and cruelties of a battleship in Nelson’s time, it shows the ruthless destruction of good-hearted able seaman Budd by sadistic master-at-arms Claggart, and the mental conflicts of intellectual but weak-willed Captain Vere, who is powerless to prevent it. The music is suitably gripping, by turns intense and exciting, and full of the insights and inspirations typical of its composer.” www.barbican.org.uk

Reviews

October 2008

…this is a good, often exciting performance, but Hickox and especially Britten are hard acts to follow.

Bostridge's voice, always smooth and luxuriant, is in its prime, with an extraordinary strength and flexibility of colour. And he's a storyteller and actor par excellence, with a massive emotional range

November 2008

…the performance carries passionate conviction. Daniel Harding conducts sensitively…but more especially with a feeling for pace and dramatic urgency. The company… work together to create… "this hateful world" (in Billy's). And the chorus… have their share of grand roughness too, sounding more plausibly sailor-like than usual.

19th September 2008

The great glory of Harding's performance is the playing of the orchestra, in a work in which it frequently assumes the role of a major protagonist. Harding's handling of those textures... is uncompromisingly direct, and the playing of the London Symphony Orchestra has the right blend of bite and pathos...Nathan Gunn is wonderfully touching as Billy Budd

14th September 2008

When you can't see him, Ian Bostridge is one of the finest tenors we have…The great roles Britten wrote for Pears suit Bostridge's timbre perfectly…in this fine recording.

13th September 2008

Bostridge portrays a solemn, neurotic and painfully rueful Captain Vere…His light, effete, officer-class tenor soars above his gruffer crew. The chorus sings the rolling 'heave away' with an infectiously queasy lilt, while Harding makes the LSO swell and recede like the Atlantic Ocean.

Britten: Billy Budd

3 CDs

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