We’re also proud to be able to announce that in partnership with the LPO’s label, we’re offering this album exclusively on Presto Music until its general release on 20th June. The LPO label was one of the first orchestral labels to launch, one of an increasing number of ensembles who value keeping things ‘in-house’ - it turns 20 this year.
Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem perhaps suffers from being overshadowed by the shattering power of his later War Requiem. Commissioned by the Japanese government in 1939 as part of the celebrations of 2600 years of the imperial dynasty, it’s fair to say it didn’t tick the expected boxes. Britten, famously an adamant pacifist, clearly heard the drums of war approaching and produced a mournful, melancholy and at times anguished work that draws conceptually on the Requiem Mass. Gardner and his orchestra lean into the fatalistic gloom of the first movement, culminating in an oppressive and exhausted climax.
It’s a common cliché to draw comparisons between Britten and Shostakovich, on both personal and musical levels, and indeed I’m going to do it again. The middle movement of the Sinfonia has an air of bitter mirth about it that Shostakovich would surely have empathised with; one can almost hear echoes of the demonic laughter of Elgar’s Gerontius, and certainly hints of the manic bugle-calls of the War Requiem. The closing movement comes as a relief - placid, genuinely and sincerely beautiful rather than with undertones of fear and anxiety - and you can hear Gardner’s musicians reacting to this change of pace, instead of trying to cram into the music a sense of creeping horror that is no longer really there. It’s powerful, moving stuff; I don’t think it’s going too far to say that Britten is pre-emptively mourning the coming six years’ tens of millions of casualties.
Enter tenor Nicky Spence - Robin Holloway’s orchestration of the Thomas Hardy cycle Winter Words, with its undercurrents of aging and loss of innocence, follows on aptly from the haunting close of the Sinfonia. The orchestral colours are bright, but not excessive - Holloway has a knack for this sort of thing and doesn’t impose. Spence negotiates Britten’s often angular vocal lines with a deceptive ease and lyricism. My personal favourite of these songs is The Choirmaster’s Burial - a perfectly-observed vignette that weaves pathos and humour together - and Holloway’s scoring, particularly in the wistful first section, lends it a real sense of ethereal nobility.
And finally, The Prince of the Pagodas. Britten’s interest in the Balinese gamelan is fairly well-known, and his encounter with this music spurred him out of the creative doldrums in the mid-1950s and enabled him to complete a charming, fantastical ballet. (Briefly: the gamelan is essentially a chamber orchestra of mostly pentatonic percussion in which the music proceeds at multiple speeds at once depending on the pitch of the instrument - though this hasty summary can’t do justice to a magnificent tradition that I highly recommend you dive into for yourself.) Some of the most directly gamelan-inspired moments are when the princess Belle Rose - pitted against her wicked sister in a rather Wizard of Oz way - visits the land of the pagodas themselves, which proceed to gracefully rotate. Tuned percussion takes the stage and the LPO’s percussionists make the most of their well-earned moment in the spotlight.
On paper, the exciting draws on this album are the newly-assembled ballet suite and the orchestrated song-cycle - both world premieres and both brilliantly presented by Gardner and the LPO. And yes, I loved them both. But when nobody’s looking I’ll admit that honestly it was the Sinfonia da Requiem that really knocked me for six. It can’t compete with the War Requiem for sheer overwhelming power, but there’s something about its more modest and sombre approach that has really stuck with me.
Nicky Spence (tenor), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
