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I’d scarcely sent off my review of the fine recording of the Howells Requiem by Paul McCreesh than this new Hyperion disc arrived on my doormat. By an odd coincidence both works were recorded in the same venue: the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. Interestingly, both recordings are produced by the same man, Adrian Peacock, though different engineers were employed on each project.
I’m not sure I’ve...
Herbert Howells (1892-1983) perfectly understood the way that liturgical music could stir the spirits. His two Services for Gloucester and St Paul’s Cathedrals, magnificently exploit ecclesiastical acoustics while bringing to the canticle texts a fluid lyrical gift, an imaginative harmonic spectrum and a sense of occasion. The disc takes ts title from the sparer, introspective Requiem, to which,...
Layton and the DNVE follow Praulins with Poulenc
The Danish National Vocal Ensemble face some pretty stiff competition with this disc of unaccompanied Poulenc but they do not just hold their own; they sweep a lot of it aside. Under Stephen Layton's perceptive and often inspired direction, they capture the essential dichotomy of Poulenc's writing as encapsulated in the title of the disc, a...
I was completely befuddled by the first words on the booklet cover: 'Half Monk' and 'Half Rascal'. Initially I thought of them as a couple of Scandinavian participants in the recording, and it was only when reading Claus Johansen (probably also Scandinavian) on the music itself that I came across Poulenc's remark that 'A critic has said that there are both a monk and a street urchin in me. That...
“A critic said that there is both a monk and a street urchin in me. That is an accurate description of my personality”. Poulenc was the first to admit the contradictions inherent in his music and character. A devout Catholic, he was openly gay, and his music can miraculously reconcile the deeply personal with the cheekily flippant. Close your ears to Poulenc and you’re missing out on some of the...
No one is pretending Poulenc's melodies and instrumental music are without their performing problems. But, rather curiously, he left many of his most fearsome challenges for his choral music: in phrasing, balance, articulation, register and, above all, tuning. For every piece that sits comfortably in a model armchair, there's another that stuns with chromatic leaps and bounds- and often the two...