Aldeburgh Strings, Markus Däunert – Britten: Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Aldeburgh Strings, Markus Däunert – Britten: Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:43 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Linn Records

This recording is the conclusion of projects celebrating Britten’s centenary in 2013, at which Aldeburgh Strings performed the closing concert in Britten’s musical home of Snape Maltings.

The recording opens with Young Apollo, a radiant, expressive, characterful and dramatic work, featuring pianist Lorenzo Soulès. The Lachrymae subtitled ‘reflections on a song of Dowland’ explores the viola’s intensely mellow sonorities; Máté Szücs (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) is the soloist. The Prelude and Fugue finds Britten indulging in the exuberant technical wizardry of his youthful period whilst recalling Bach’s sophisticated contrapuntal textures.

To close, one of the great masterpieces of Britten’s cannon: the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. The award-winning tenor Allan Clayton and horn player Richard Watkins are the soloists, the latter reprising his role 30 years after first performing it with Peter Pears.

This enjoyable album, including some Britten rarities like Young Apollo and the Prelude and Fugue, draws on recordings made at the Snape Maltings between October 2012 and April 2015. It’s fairly short weight at only 55 minutes, but any concerns about that should be set aside, because of the exceptional performance here of the Serenade , one of the great masterpieces of British music. The tenor Allan Clayton, is an artist for whom I have the highest regard, because of both the quality of his voice and his calibre as a musician. And the playing of the hornist Richard Watkins is also truly exceptional. The opening phrase of the serenade’s Pastoral makes clear that Clayton is blessed with the same sort of high tenor voice as the singer for whom the piece was written, Britten’s partner Peter Pears, but without what I can only describe as the strangulated, drowning-the-cat, timbres that, if truth be told, irritated all but Pears’ most dedicates admirers. As such, this is a performance so worth treasuring, that even if you don’t want the whole album, you should download this. By the way, this recording mainly features the Aldeburgh Strings, a group put together from visiting musicians, rather as they do at Bayreuth, so the viola player Mate Szucs plays in the Berlin Philharmonic, whilst the director, the violinist Markus Daunert, is leader of both the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Quite a pedigree. –Classic FM, March 2016

Tracklist:

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
1 Young Apollo Op 16*[7’55]
2 Lachrymae Op 48a**[14’19]

Prelude and Fugue Op 29
3 Prelude[3’06]
4 Fugue[5’43]

Serenade for tenor, horn and strings Op 31
5 Prologue: Andante[1’32]
6 Pastoral: Lento The day’s grown old; the fainting sun[3’23]
7 Nocturne: Maestoso The splendour falls on castle walls[3’52]
8 Elegy: Andante appassionato O rose, thou art sick![4’00]
9 Dirge: Alla marcia grave This ae nighte[3’29]
10 Hymn: Presto e leggiero Queen and huntress, chaste and fair[2’03]
11 Sonnet: Adagio O soft embalmer of the still midnight[3’59]
12 Epilogue: Andante[1’41]

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
13 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis[13:43]

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