Page 80 - BBC Music (January 2020)

Choral & Song

CHORAL & SONG CHOICE Bliss
The Enchantress; Meditations
Heart-melting music and on a Theme by John Blow;
Mary of Magdala
Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano),
revelatory performances James Platt (bass); BBC Symphony
Orchestra/Andrew Davis
Chandos CHSA 5242 (hybrid CD/SACD)
David Nice is bowled over by the perfect fusion of 76:58 mins
A quasi-operatic
voice and piano in this impressive Grieg recital scena conceived
for Kathleen
Ferrier, and a
sacred cantata
Pure white notes: with ‘Three
Claire Booth is a Choirs Festival’ written all over it,
versatile soprano
frame a stand-out set of orchestral
variations as Chandos’s Bliss
odyssey with Sir Andrew Davis
and his BBC forces notches up
a third instalment. The music
straddles roughly a decade whose
halfway point is marked by the
1955 Meditations on a Theme by
John Blow, an essay in variation
form interpretatively engineered
around the verses of the 23rd
Psalm. It’s a work that finds Davis
in his element, pacing the whole
with an impeccable assuredness,
coaxing ravishing wind playing in
the Introduction, expansively at
home in the first variation which
elaborates ‘He leadeth me beside the
still waters’, and bitingly trenchant
in the variation that follows.
Throughout, Davis is scrupulously
solicitous of Bliss’s carefully
Grieg by the impressionist bells of a late Lyric Piece, and calculated play of orchestral
Songs and piano works: Haugtussa (The there are telling conjunctions between songs proper colour, and a warm surround-
sound recording is the icing on the
Mountain Maid), Op. 67; Lyric Pieces – Op. 12 and piano pieces throughout. expressive cake.
Nos 1 (Arietta), 5 (Folktune) & 6 (Norwegian); The centrepiece is the song-cycle Haugtussa (‘The The sacred cantata Mary
Op. 43/1 (Butterfly); Op. 47/3 (Melody); Op. 54 Mountain Maid’); this pair renders it a masterpiece. of Magdala is perhaps a more
No. 6 (Bell Ringing); Op. 62 Nos 1 (Sylph), The familiar trajectory of love and rejection is made problematic work, sometimes
5 (Phantom) & 6 (Homeward) etc special by the characterisation of a rustic Norwegian hidebound by its English choral
Claire Booth (soprano), soul, who sings in her own voice in five of the eight pedigree; but Davis believes in
Christopher Glynn (piano) songs. The links with the natural it and enjoys the unassailable
Avie AV2403 71:59 mins Booth and Glynn world are delightful, even support of Sarah Connolly in
‘Edvard Grieg: Lyric Music’ is the render Haugtussa humorous – note how Glynn uses the title role, and James Platt as a
perfect title, since the piano sings a single piano note to represent consummately dignified Christ.
as much here on its own as it does a masterpiece the crack of a birch-club on a Indeed Connolly is similarly Rolls-
when joining the voice. Claire Booth threatening wolf’s jaw – and the Royce casting for The Enchantress,
and Christopher Glynn take their cue from the mixed amorous moments heart-meltingly lovely. A perfect a Theocritus-derived disquisition
programmes of the composer as pianist with his fusion between voice and piano – the piano’s opening on love, abandonment and sorcery.
beloved singer wife Nina; more, they build a three- wistfulness is matched by the soprano’s in ‘The Spurred on by Davis who seizes on
parter that makes this a very special Grieg recital. Princess’, for instance – is perfectly served by an ideal the cantata’s muscularity, felicities
You’d think Booth’s bright, youthful soprano with recording. Revelatory. of detail and filmic immediacy, she
its mix of fast vibrato – as distinctively part of the PERFORMANCE HHHHH savours to the full its declamatory
personality as those of Lucia Popp or Barbara Bonney RECORDING HHHHH fervour, sometimes twisted rapture,
– and pure white notes would be best suited to the and fleeting tenderness.
spring-like happiness of the early songs; but she turns Hear extracts from this recording and the rest of For fans of Sir Arthur, let Bliss be
this month’s choices on the BBC Music Magazine
SVEN ARNSTEIN ‘At the Grave of a Young Wife’. It’s poetically redeemed website at www.classical-music.com unconfined! Paul Riley HHHHH
in well-weighted tragedy, too, in the penultimate song,
HHHH
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING

82 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE