Benjamin Britten - Serenade; Les Illuminations; Nocturne (Ian Bostridge)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Britten

• (01-10) Les Illuminations, Op. 18
• (11-18) Serenade, Op. 31
• (19-26) Nocturne, Op. 60

Ian Bostridge, tenor
Radek Baborák, horn (11-18)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Date: 2005
Label: EMI

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Review

GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE

Tenor, conductor and orchestra combine to offer inspired readings

This recording followed live performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival in April. For that reason if no other it offers a profoundly considered and technically immaculate traversal of Britten’s three great and varied cycles for tenor and orchestra, conceived with Pears’s voice in mind. Authoritative as the recordings by composer and tenor may be, there is plenty of room for new insights into such complex and inspired scores.

Bostridge’s particular gift for lighting texts from within, and projecting so immediately their images, comes into its own arrestingly in the Nocturne. With his vocal agility and vital word-painting at their most assured – allied to surely the most virtuoso account of the obbligato parts yet heard, and Rattle supremely alert – this reading sets a standard hard to equal. Add a perfectly balanced recording and you have an ideal result.

Not that the accounts of the earlier cycles are far behind in going to the heart of the matter. Bostridge catches all the fantasy and irony of Les illuminations and projects the text with a biting delivery that stops just the right side of caricature. Rattle and his orchestra are once again aware of Britten’s subtleties of rhythm and instrumentation.

The Serenade, most easily accessible of the three works, demonstrates the advantages of recording after live performances. Everything seems fresh-minted and immediate, nowhere more so than in Radek Baborák’s bold yet sensitive horn playing. Some of the verbal over-emphases that are now part of Bostridge’s vocal persona (and were absent in his earlier recording of the work for EMI, 8/97) might not have been approved by the composer but for the most part they second the plangent beauty of his voice, which is evident throughout these very personal and satisfying interpretations. Bostridge writes illuminating notes in the booklet, too, adding to the disc’s value.

-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/e/emi58049a.php
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2006/01/britten_serenad.php
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/dec/16/classicalmusicandopera.shopping
http://www.allmusic.com/album/britten-serenade-for-tenor-horn-and-strings-les-illuminations-nocturne-mw0001385847
https://www.amazon.com/Britten-Serenade-Strings-Illuminations-Nocturne/dp/B000AXZE3U

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Benjamin Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. Britten was also a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Britten

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Ian Bostridge (born 25 December 1964 in London) is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer. Bostridge only began singing professionally at age 27 and made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1993. His operatic debut was in 1994, at age 29. An EMI Classics exclusive artist since 1996, his CDs have won all of the major record prizes including Grammy Award (15 times nominee) and several Gramophone Awards. Bostridge was for a time the music columnist for Standpoint magazine. A collection of his writings on music, A Singer's Notebook, was published by Faber and Faber in September 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Bostridge

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