Britten: Complete Songs Volume 1 - Onyx: ONYX4071 - 2 CDs or download | Presto Music

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Britten: Complete Songs Volume 1

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James Geer, a tenor with an instinct for the inflection of poetry that matches the composer's own, offers 'A Dirge'...Katherine Broderick brings by turns a forlorn beauty and a fiery plangency... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 26th Apr 2011
Catalogue No: ONYX4071
Label: Onyx
Length: 2 hours 11 minutes

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Contents

Britten: Fish in the Unruffled Lakes - Six Auden settings

Work length5:02

$2.00

$2.80

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

To Lie Flat on the Back

Track length2:27

$1.00

$1.40

Night Covers Up the Rigid Land

Track length2:35

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: A Dirge

Work length1:14

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Virtue in deeds, not words

Work length1:11

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, Caryl Hughes

Britten: Prithee

Work length1:52

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, Andrew Tortoise

Britten: Lucy

Work length1:25

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, Ben Johnson

Britten: Canticle I - "My Beloved Is Mine And I Am His" Op. 40

Work length7:46

$1.50

$2.10

Malcom Martineau, Andrew Tortoise

Britten: Um Mitternacht

Work length4:07

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length1:22

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length2:19

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length2:09

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length1:59

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length2:06

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: Six Hölderlin Fragments, Op. 61

Work length2:29

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, James Geer

Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35

Work length24:24

$9.00

$12.60

Malcom Martineau, Ben Johnson

Oh My Blacke Soule!

Track length3:43

$1.00

$1.40

Batter My Heart

Track length1:17

$1.00

$1.40

Oh Might Those Sighes and Teares

Track length3:38

$1.00

$1.40

Oh, to Vex Me

Track length1:07

$1.00

$1.40

What If This Present

Track length3:08

$1.00

$1.40

Since She Whom I Loved

Track length3:18

$1.00

$1.40

At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners

Track length2:46

$1.00

$1.40

Thou Hast Made Me

Track length1:23

$1.00

$1.40

Death, Be Not Proud

Track length4:04

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: Cabaret Songs

Work length15:28

$4.00

$5.60

Malcom Martineau, Caryl Hughes

Calypso

Track length2:13

$1.00

$1.40

Tell Me the Truth About Love

Track length5:23

$1.00

$1.40

Johnny

Track length5:01

$1.00

$1.40

Funeral Blues

Track length2:51

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: Tit for Tat

Work length10:28

$5.00

$7.00

Malcom Martineau, Philip Smith

A Song of Enchantment

Track length2:39

$1.00

$1.40

Autumn

Track length1:33

$1.00

$1.40

Silver

Track length1:54

$1.00

$1.40

Vigil

Track length2:24

$1.00

$1.40

Tit for Tat

Track length1:58

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: Beware!

Work length3:45

$3.00

$4.20

Malcom Martineau, Philip Smith, Nicky Spence

Beware!

Track length1:07

$1.00

$1.40

Oh That I Had Ne'er Been Married

Track length1:26

$1.00

$1.40

Epitaph: The Clerk

Track length1:12

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: Lilian

Work length3:00

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, Philip Smith

Britten: The Joy of Grief

Work length1:08

$1.00

$1.40

Malcom Martineau, Katherine Broderick

Britten: Ekho poeta (The Poet's Echo) Op. 76

Work length16:29

$6.00

$8.40

Malcom Martineau, Katherine Broderick

Echo

Track length2:54

$1.00

$1.40

My Heart

Track length1:49

$1.00

$1.40

Angel

Track length2:36

$1.00

$1.40

The Nightingale and the Rose

Track length4:11

$1.00

$1.40

Epigram

Track length0:49

$1.00

$1.40

Lines Written During a Sleepless Night

Track length4:10

$1.00

$1.40

Britten: Winter Words

Work length21:27

$8.00

$11.20

Malcom Martineau, Robin Tritschler

At Day-Close in November

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.40

Midnight on the Great Western

Track length4:49

$1.00

$1.40

Wagtail and Baby

Track length2:03

$1.00

$1.40

The Little Old Table

Track length1:18

$1.00

$1.40

The Choirmaster's Burial

Track length4:09

$1.00

$1.40

Proud Songsters

Track length1:07

$1.00

$1.40

At the Railway Station

Track length3:09

$1.00

$1.40

Before Life and After

Track length3:00

$1.00

$1.40

About
Reviews
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About

28 pp booklet, essay and sung texts

Britten was a prolific composer of songs throughout his creative life, producing over 100 settings for voice and piano, in addition to the works for voice and orchestra. His songs for voice and piano – of which this is the first in a two-volume 4CD cycle, contain settings by poets as diverse as Michelangelo, Hölderlin, Hardy, Pushkin, Auden and Soutar.

The earliest songs date from 1922, when Britten was just nine years old – ‘Beware!’ and two other songs were from this period were reassessed by the composer in 1968, but not published until 1985. These rarities display little of the mature composer’s style, but they are confident and charming settings. The touching ‘Lilian’ and ‘The Joy of Grief’ are also early songs and receive their premiere recordings here. Mature Britten is represented by the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Winter Words and the 1965 cycle The Poet’s Echo.

This survey of all Britten’s songs for voice and piano is a major project, and Malcolm Martineau has assembled some of the finest young singers of our time for this fascinating journey through repertoire that spans the period 1922–1971.

Reviews

August 2011

James Geer, a tenor with an instinct for the inflection of poetry that matches the composer's own, offers 'A Dirge'...Katherine Broderick brings by turns a forlorn beauty and a fiery plangency to the Pushkin settings of The Poet's Echo...We have a tiny and tantalising glimpse of tenor Nicky Spence...O that I had ne'er been married...a touching and memorable gem within this auspicious first volume.

28th May 2011

Martineau paces his survey of Britten’s songbook with the same lightly worn expertise he brings to his accompaniments, alternating lighter and darker material, innocent and knowing, in a way that maintains the listener’s interest.

September 2011

Among so many potential successors to Peter Pears...two tenors stand out: Robin Tritschler, who gives a performance of exceptional tenderness in the ever-popular Winter Words, and Ben Johnson, whose string and intense singing of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne nails his colours to the Britten mast with impressive authority...As always, Malcolm Martineau's accompaniments are a constant source of inspiration on the journey.

29th May 2011

Martineau has gathered a gratifyingly formidable array of young British singing talent. Ben Johnson is commanding in an urgent, passionate reading of The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Andrew Tortise conveys rapturously intense emotions in Canticle I...Perhaps the best is left until last, when Robin Tritschler gives a fresh-sounding Winter Words.

12th June 2011

The John Donne sonnets (Ben Johnson) and The Poet's Echo (Katherine Broderick) are very fine, but the most compelling track is "Canticle 1", a masterpiece powerfully delivered by Andrew Tortise.

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