SUSAN GRITTON sings Britten Finzi Delius BBC Symphony Orchestra Edward Gardner Benjamin Britten, right, with Peter Pears at Long Island, New York, 1939 © The Lotte Jacobi Collection, University of New Hampshire/ AKG Images, London Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) Dies natalis, Op. 8 26:00 Cantata for high voice and string orchestra 1 I Intrada. Andante con moto – 5:11 2 II Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato). Andante con moto 7:19 3 III The Rapture (Danza). Allegro vivace e giojoso 4:00 4 IV Wonder (Arioso). Andante 4:55 5 V The Salutation (Aria). Tempo comodo 4:23 Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Les Illuminations, Op. 18 22:59 for soprano or tenor and string orchestra For Sophie Wyss 6 I Fanfare. Maestoso (poco presto) – 2:00 7 II Villes. Allegro energico 2:32 8 IIIa Phrase. Lento ed estatico – 1:01 9 IIIb Antique. To K.H.W.S. Allegretto, un poco mosso 1:59 10 IV Royauté. Allegro maestoso 1:41 11 V Marine. Allegro con brio 1:06 12 VI Interlude. To E.M. Moderato ma comodo – 2:54 13 VII Being Beauteous. To P.N.L.P. Lento ma comodo 4:18 14 VIII Parade. Alla marcia 2:56 15 IX Départ. Largo mesto 2:31 3 Quatre Chansons françaises 13:24 for high voice and orchestra Edited by Colin Matthews 16 1 Nuits de juin. Lento e molto rubato 3:02 17 2 Sagesse. Lento ma non troppo 3:14 18 3 L’Enfance. Animato – Lento 4:42 19 4 Chanson d’automne. Moderato con molto moto ma sempre colla voce 2:15 Frederick Delius (1862–1934) 20 A Late Lark 5:20 Edited by Sir Thomas Beecham and Eric Fenby Prepared for publication by Robert Threlfall Slow TT 68:15 Susan Gritton soprano BBC Symphony Orchestra Stephen Bryant leader Edward Gardner Susan Gritton would like to dedicate her recording of Dies natalis on this disc to the loving memory of Richard Hickox. 4 Susan Gritton sings: Britten, Finzi and Delius Finzi: Dies natalis chaplain to a nobleman. His poetry was In Dies natalis, a setting by Gerald Finzi of also little known during his lifetime and lay a text by the metaphysical poet and divine forgotten for two centuries after his death Thomas Traherne, we find these words: until it was rediscovered and published at The corn was orient and immortal wheat, the turn of the twentieth century. Traherne which never should be reaped nor was was known by Henry Vaughan, and his ever sown. I thought it had stood from significance as a poet lies in his contribution everlasting to everlasting. to Anglican mystical poetry; of particular When one looks out on a summer’s day from interest are his descriptions of the innocence the church porch of St Mary, Credenhill, near of childhood, a theme that links him to later Hereford – where Traherne was incumbent poets, in particular to Blake and Wordsworth. in the middle of the seventeenth century – Traherne’s images of innocence were over fields of corn to the Black Mountains in stark contrast to Finzi’s predominantly beyond, it is all too easy to surmise that this unhappy formative years. As the youngest of must have been the view that inspired the five children, and the only one manifesting lines, for the landscape can have changed artistic gifts, Finzi felt himself the outsider little since Traherne’s day. The words come in an uncomprehending family. The frailty of from Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations, life was etched on him too at an early period, and it was their vision of a child’s unsullied as by the age of seventeen his father and all perception of the world that struck a his brothers were dead, as was his revered resonance with Finzi and became the composition teacher, Ernest Farrar, a victim inspiration for this work. of World War I. He began work on Dies natalis Facts about the poet’s short life in the mid-1920s, when he composed the (1637–1674) are scant: Traherne was a native movements ‘Rhapsody’, ‘Intrada’ and ‘The of Hereford, studied at Brasenose College, Salutation’. As he often did, Finzi then laid the Oxford and, after his tenure at Credenhill, work aside, allowing it to mature and develop moved to Teddington, near London, as in the recesses of his mind. During the next 5 ten years he composed ‘Wonder’, but it was of angels above the oxen-stall in Botticelli’s a request from the Three Choirs Festival for Mystic Nativity which hangs in the National a work to be performed at the 1939 festival Gallery, and the magnificent carved wooden that galvanised him into revising the extant angels in March Church in the Fens. From movements and adding the contrasting fast these he fashioned an exultant dance of movement, ‘The Rapture’. Because of the praise. ‘Wonder’ is a tender arioso, Traherne’s outbreak of war, the planned première was opening line, ‘How like an angel I came down!’, cancelled; instead Maurice Miles conducted evoked through a vocal phrase that seems to the first performance at the Wigmore Hall in float in its descent. A quality of concord and London on 26 January 1940; Elsie Suddaby timelessness characterises ‘The Salutation’, was the soloist. which is cast in the form of a Bachian In form, the finished work, whose title chorale prelude. The arching, soaring vocal literally means ‘Day of Birth’, resembles a line is quintessential Finzi, and the verses baroque cantata. By choosing to begin the are interspersed with limpid orchestral work with a purely instrumental movement, flowerings marked by the expressive falling ‘Intrada’, Finzi creates an image of the unborn interval of the seventh, until finally the violas child in the womb, expressive of Traherne’s wind the movement to stillness in a mood of lines: rapt wonder. An empty book is like an infant’s soul, in which anything may be written, it Britten: Les Illuminations is capable of all things but containeth It was probably through his friendship with nothing. W.H. Auden that Britten discovered the Its musical ideas are shared with the second prose-poetry of the French symbolist Arthur movement, ‘Rhapsody’, a free adaptation of Rimbaud. Apart from the poems by Verlaine the opening stanzas of the poet’s Centuries of and Hugo in Quatre Chansons françaises, Meditations. Finzi sets the text, describing an these were the first foreign texts that Britten infant’s wide-eyed wonderment on entering set. The colourful language and imagery of the world, in masterly fashion, combining the poetry caught his imagination, and in supple recitative with fluid arioso. 1938 he started composing a song cycle for Finzi had two images in mind when high voice and strings on poems from the composing ‘The Rapture’: the dancing circle collection Les Illuminations. The songs mark a 6 more cosmopolitan turn in his musical voice over glissandi harmonics on violas and celli. and, succeeding Our Hunting Fathers (1936), Also defined in ‘Fanfare’ are the dual tonalities a further development in his exploration of of B flat and E, the points of departure of the the orchestral song cycle, a form that he cycle’s tonal schemes. was to make very much his own during his Rimbaud’s fantastical prose-poetry in subsequent career. ‘Villes’ (Towns), describing cities and their Several of the songs were finished by inhabitants, is evocatively conjured in May 1939 when Britten and Peter Pears restless energetic music, Britten responding left for an indefinite stay in the USA. to the quicksilver succession of verbal Britten sanctioned performances of ‘Being images – for example, the frenetic gallop of Beauteous’ in Birmingham in April and hooves at ‘Des cortèges de Mabs en robes ‘Marine’ at the Promenade Concerts in rousses, opalines’ (Corteges of Queen Mabs August, both with Sophie Wyss as soloist. in robes red and opaline). The cycle was completed in Amityville, In ‘Phrase’, the soloist sings an ethereal New York on 25 October 1939, and the first melody over delicate, widely spaced complete performance, given by Sophie Wyss harmonics. It culminates in a descending vocal (the overall dedicatee) and the Boyd Neel glissando on the final word, ‘danse’, and, with Orchestra with Neel conducting, took place it, a magical change of harmony. In the setting on 30 January 1940 at the Wigmore Hall (just of ‘Antique’, Britten composed a sensuous four days after the première of Dies natalis). melody from the simplest of musical material Britten’s superb understanding of stringed (a B flat arpeggio). Voice and solo violin imitate instruments is immediately apparent in the each other against the serenading pizzicato opening bars of ‘Fanfare’, which grabs the of three desks of violas and cellos evoking listener’s attention by distinctive musical the strumming of a guitar. The movement is gestures: urgent fanfares on violas and first dedicated to ‘K.H.W.S.’ – Wulff Scherchen (son violins as well as swooping glissandi from of the conductor Hermann Scherchen), a close the latter. These lead to the soloist’s intoning friend of Britten’s at that time. the enigmatic motto which recurs during The music of ‘Royauté’ (Royalty) has a the work: ‘J’ai seul la clef de cette parade majestic quality, suitable to the text in which sauvage’ (I alone hold the key to this savage two lovers imagine they become regents for parade). The motto is taken up by solo violin a day. It is cast in rondeau form, its parlando 7 directness giving it an almost operatic quality. juvenilia. Setting poems by Paul Verlaine ‘Marine’ is a windy seascape suggesting and Victor Hugo, the songs were composed sparkling light on dancing waves.