Benjamin Britten – Sacred and Profane
AMDG, Five Flower Songs, Old French Carol, Choral Dances from Gloriana
Polyphony
Stephen Layton
Gramophone Award Winner : Choral Disc of 2001
"This has to be one of the strongest winners of the choral award in recent
years"
Gramophone Critics’ Choice
Diapason D’Or : Choral Disc of 2002
Gramophone
June 2001
AMDG presents as formidable a challenge to its singers as any of Britten's
compositions for unaccompanied choir. In fact that is sometimes suggested
as the reason why, having written it for an expert group in 1939 and realising
that its chances of frequent performance were slim, Britten never prepared
the work for publication. It's a pity he couldn't have heard Stephen Layton's
Polyphony! Even more than the Finzi Singers, their predecessors on record,
they have worked it into the system so that they have the sense of it
clearly in their mind and can make the word-setting fresh and spontaneous.
'God's Grandeur' (allegro con fuoco) has the fire: the Finzis seem almost
cautious by comparison. In 'The Soldier' Polyphony catch the swing of
the triples and dotted notes with more panache and make more of the words.
Then, taking a slightly slower tempo than the Finzis, they bring out the
tender lyricism (sopranos and tenors in octaves) in 'Prayer II' and grasp
more decisively the con moto, Vivace and Avanti! markings in 'O Deus,
ego amo te'.
In the Five Flower Songs Polyphony have a slight advantage (these distinctions
are all 'slight' in the normal degrees of comparison because all of the
performances are of a remarkably high standard) over The Sixteen (Collins,
8/92 - nla) in that theirs is a rather younger tone and their numbers
(or maybe the record sound) allow them to convey more sense of round-the-table
intimacy. In the Choral Dances from 'Gloriana', The Sixteen may well be
found preferable on account of the version they use, involving solo tenor
and harp. With the straightforward choral version Polyphony improve on
the Finzi Singers' performance with crisper rhythms and a clearer acoustic
The ethereal and rarely heard Chorale after an old French Carol has, in
comparison with the only other available recorded version, under Hickox,
a greater share of heavenly light (and lightness); and Sacred and Profane,
like AMDG a work for virtuosos, is given with wonderful confidence and
imagination.
On a personal note, I'd like to revert to the remarks on AMDG in my original
review of the Finzi Singers' record: 'It commands attention and gains
an admiration that I can't quite see growing into affection.' Well, it
has grown. These seven settings of poems by Hopkins, so discouragingly
set aside by the composer, now seem virtually inseparable from their ever-moving
text.
John Steane
Diapason D'Or de L'Annee
Palmares 2002
Musique Chorale
Après un formidable
récital
Cornelius (chez le même éditeur), Stephen Layton revient en Angleterre pour fêter Britten.
Encore chosit-il un Britten moins connu qu’à l’ordinaire dans ce programme essentiellement
consacré à la musique chorale profane. On peut s’interroger sur cette relative
désaffection.
Difficulté
des oeuvres ? Certainement. Mais il n’empêche : les quatre recueils et les deux pieces
isolées
ici réunis
forment un bel ensemble. Toutes les qualités présentes dans le récital Cornelius, à commencer
par une sureté
technique à
toute épreuve
au service d’une liberté d’expression rare de l’autre côté du Channel, se retrouvent dans ces
pages. Mieux : Polyphony prend des risques insensés avec le tempo, tant la précision d’articulation
est impressionnante. Maitre d’oeuvre de cette gravure remarquable, Stephen
Layton, s’affirme comme l’un des chefs de choeur qu’il faudra suivre lors
des prochaines saisons – espérons l’entendre rapidement en
Olivier Opdebeeck
Evening Standard
Hot Tickets
April 2001
After hearing their latest CD of choral works by Britten, nothing
will dissuade me from the conclusion that Polyphony under Stephen Layton
is the best chamber choir in the country. Listen to the pinpoint articulation
in I mon waxe wood from the collection Sacred and Profane Op91. The high
sopranos are lithe, strong and young. They rattle out the semiquavers
even at altitude with precision and clarity. Carol (Maiden in the mor
lay) from the same set is the loveliest piece on the disc with its urgent
whisper and whiplash What. The wonderful men-only Rustics and Fishermen
from the Choral Dances from Gloriana has a taste of salt in the breeze.
Earnest labourers stride home and the sorrow of loss rears its head. Such
rural livings are gone for ever. The disc is also distractingly poignant.
But for Britten, much poetry would go unread and unheard. The Five Flower
Songs Op47 preserve exquisite verse by the long-dead Robert Herrick, George
Crabbe and John Clare. The collection AMDG sets those poems by the mystic
poet Gerard Manley Hopkins which are signed with the above initials. Britten
withdrew the set so they are not well-known. Rosa Mystica binds a lilting
jig around the chanting note A. God's grandeur spins out the title like
a forceful mantra against un-churchy imagery ('like shining from shook
foil'). Polyphony performs the set with seraphic, not to say highly professional
conviction.
Easter is an appropriate time to recommend a recording of Beethoven's
great 70-minute Missa Solemnis performed by the SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester
under Chief Conductor Sir Roger Norrington with the NDR Choir and the
SWR Vokalensemble. The performance is powerfully old-fashioned. The Christe
eleison drives on against Beethovenian adversity and the Gloria breaks
into paradise with the arrival of blazing trumpets. The power-soloists
are heroic and the choir weighty, at times unduly so. Actually the sopranos
sound rather bosomy. Give me Polyphony’s sweet nightingales any time.
Stephen Layton conducts Polyphony in Bach’s St John Passion at 2.30pm
on Good Friday in St John’s Smith Square.
American Record Guide
This collection of some of Britten’s a cappella choral music is wide-ranging
– from the Hymn to the Virgin (1930) composed at the age of 16 to
the late cycle of medieval poems, Sacred and Profane (1975) composed shortly
before Britten’s death. Along the way we hear the difficult setting
of Gerald Manley Hopkins's AMDG (composed in 1939 at the beginning of
Britten’s sojourn in America, but not heard again or published until
after Britten’s death). The Chorale on a text by Auden (Christmas
1944) and the musically lovely and intellectually stimulating excerpts
from Gloriana and the Flower Songs complete the program.
Polyphony’s performances under Layton are musically impeccable, carefully
wound and tuned, superbly balanced – a magnificent display of sheer
beauty of choral sound, yet never lacking in intensity and delicate interpretive
finesse.
Gramophone
The programme is delightful and the choir excellent
www.musicweb
A crack choir who sing with immaculate intonation and a sure sense of
internal balance … I was left wishing there could be more
The Age, Melbourne
Polyphony’s exceptional energy, technical prowess and expressive
flexibility make the most of every word and mood throughout this hour-long
programme. This engrossing anthology of words and music comes highly recommended
Cathedral Music
A valued possession … highly recommended
BBC Music Magazine
June 2001
Polyphony’s brand of singing, clean as a whistle, rhythmically wonderfully
alive, impeccably tuned and voiced, polished yet always fervent, is justly
renowned and on this disc, under the direction of Stephen Layton, it serves
Britten's a cappella choral music extremely well. The variety here is
vast, ranging from the still magical A Hymn to the Virgin, which Britten
composed in 1930 at the age of 16, to the challenging cycle on medieval
poems, Sacred and Profane, fast performed in 1975, just over a year before
his death. In between, the Gerard Manley Hopkins settings AMDG, recovered
only in the Eighties but written shortly after Britten's arrival in the
United States in August 1939, show the jazziness and jauntiness of the
Auden-influenced years, while the lovely Choral Dances from Gloriana (1954)
and the Flower Songs, a challenge relished by many a university chamber
choir, demonstrate an instinctive affinity with the choral idiom unsurpassed
by any of Britten's contemporaries. I love, too, the Chorale after an
Old French Carol to a text by Auden, which was first heard in a Christmas
broadcast in 1944. Hard to remain unmoved by this couching work, given
its time and circumstance, and given such an incense reading as here.
Stephen Pettitt
PERFORMANCE ***** SOUND *****
International Music Reviews
May 2001
Almost the only criticism I have of this superb programme is that in Sacred
and Profane, Britten's late group of settings of early English poems,
Polyphony employ the sort of studied `authentic' pronunciation that one
associates with the most scholarly of early music specialists. And yet
at various points in his career Britten turned to the very different sounds
and syntaxes of foreign languages as a spur to his inventiveness, and
his use of middle English could be regarded as the last of those forays.
Certainly Polyphony's willingness to sing with full tone and their very
precise pitching - two of their most admirable qualities - do point up
the work's striking range of choral colour and imagery, and perhaps the
sound of the language intensifies this.
Here, and throughout, Polyphony's own sound, which is very full for a
chamber choir and exceptionally well balanced, is most beautifully conveyed
by the recording. It was made in Temple Church in London, which offers
both a pleasing resonance and the ability to place the second group of
singers, responding in Latin to the English prayer of the Hymn to the
Virgin, at a slight distance: extremely effective. Nor is the recording
too close: the singers are, as it were, on a concert platform. Their weight
of tone, where needed, gives great solemnity to the seldom-heard Chorale
after an Old French Carol, but they have also the nimble lightness of
touch for a very fresh account of the dances from Gloriana. For many listeners
the real discovery will be A.M.D.G., seven settings of Gerard Manlev Hopkins
that Britten unaccountably withdrew. Like Sacred and Profane they are
full of very imaginative choral effects (exceptionally rich, complex harmonies
in No. 1, boldly bare simplicity elsewhere) to which Polyphony's remarkable
qualities are ideally suited; I have not heard either of these important
cycles better sung.
Michael Oliver
Amazon.co.uk
This disc containing the major part of Britten's mixed-voice a cappella
repertoire (the Hymn to St Cecilia is the only substantial omission) could
hardly be a better showcase for the virtuosity of Polyphony and the increasingly
assured talents of Stephen Layton. There's every sign that this music
is particularly well "sung in": the phrasing - whether rapid,
rat-a-tat or relaxed - carries such a sense of rightness and unanimity,
always knowing precisely where it's going; the vowel colours are nothing
if not alluring; and, most noticeable of all, the blend and balance of
voices is exceptional.
The excellent recorded sound saps all the benefit from the airy spaces
of the Temple Church in London without ever becoming swimmy. The works
span a period of some 45 years of Britten's life, from the ever-popular
childhood A Hymn to the Virgin to the often fiendishly tricky Sacred and
Profane based on that intriguing mix of eight medieval lyrics. The "Choral
Dances" from the opera Gloriana, recalling the celebrations for Queen
Elizabeth II's coronation, are ravishingly sung. But to my mind there
is nothing better here than the performance of AMDG, where Polyphony gives
the Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry all the passionate commitment it demands.
Andrew Green
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