This trio of compositions charts Harrison Birtwistle's transition from the brutal mechanics and plaintive lyricism of his first opera Punch and Judy (1967) to the more subtle expressive qualities and more expansive forms of his second, The Mask of Orpheus, begun in 1973. The recordings, especially of Verses (1969), show their age, but the performances remain uniquely arresting, unsurpassed in their eager response to the challenges and rewards these scores offered to David Atherton, Alan Hacker and their colleagues.
Listening to Verses today, its well-nigh half hour of improvisatory drumming interspersed with woodwind and brass riffs recalling Varèse and Tippett, you can see why Birtwistle felt the need to open himself up to the kind of mythic subject matter that the Orpheus pieces explore. Verses has its quieter moments but they tend to sound drained of expression, and the strategy of moving the players around the platform makes little impact in a parched analogue recording. The great leap forward in Nenia: The Death of Orpheus (1972) is obvious and profound. Birtwistle might not have been immediately confident enough in his vocal writing to dispense with a battery of effects close to the kind of thing Berio had devised for Cathy Berberian, but Jane Manning's brilliant account, especially in the soft yet intense speech of the final section, helps to underline that newfound mastery of slow but certain pacing – drifting with a purpose – that would be a Birtwistle feature from then on.
The Field of Sorrow (1972) further concentrates form and expression with consistent, complementary textural layering and richly focused lyricism. That Birtwistle has remained faithful to such principles ever since is evidence not of a lack of fresh ideas but of his awareness that he had found a winning, infinitely adaptable formula.
This disc is valuable above all in reminding today's listeners of where and when that formula was first deployed.

The recordings, especially of Verses (1969), show their age, but the performances remain uniquely arresting, unsurpassed in their eager response to the challenges and rewards these scores offered to David Atherton, Alan Hacker and their colleagues.