Percy Grainger - Folk Music (Claire Booth; Christopher Glynn)

Information

Composer: Percy Grainger

1. Bold William Taylor
2. Six Dukes Went Afishin'
3. Knight and Shepherd's Daughter
4. Lord Maxwell's Goodnight
5. My Robin Is to the Greenwood Gone
6. The Pretty Maid Milkin' Her Cow
7. The Sprig of Thyme
8. The Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol
9. The Twa Corbies
10. Irish Tune from County Derry
11. Died for Love
12. The Power of Love
13. Walking Tune
14. Willow Willow
15. Early One Morning
16. One More Day, My John
17. Hard Hearted Barb'ra (H)Ellen
18. Country Gardens

Claire Booth, soprano (piano duet: 18)
Christopher Glynn, piano (solo: 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16; duet: 18)

Date: 2017
Label: Avie
http://www.avie-records.com/releases/percy-grainger-folk-music/

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Review

Folk music collections such as this are not nearly as simple to bring off as they might seem. Percy Grainger’s folk song arrangements don’t have the profile of Bartók’s and Britten’s; Grainger gains credibility for working from his own field recordings but perhaps loses a bit because his treatments can be highly interventionist. One of my favourites in this collection is ‘Died for love’, with a typically wistful British vocal line about a fairly extreme death wish accompanied by a rippling ostinato that suggests a larger world that passes by the song’s agonising protagonist unnoticed. More frankly descriptive touches such as the dissonant tolling bells in ‘Hard hearted Barb’ra (H)Ellen’ may be compelling on their own terms but sit less well in ethnomusicology circles.

The 18 selections mix solo piano and vocal/piano folk song settings, including ‘Bold William Taylor’, ‘The pretty maid milkin’ her cow’, ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ and more academic titles such as ‘Irish Tune from County Derry’, which is in fact ‘Danny Boy’ or ‘Londonderry Air’. Pianist Christopher Glynn has written notes in which thoughtful, admiring insights abound but which sometimes interpret Grainger’s compositional reimagining in operatic terms that perhaps oversell the pieces, at least in his performances.

Glynn gives Grainger the Urtext treatment at the keyboard, regarding the music with a soft-spoken reverence that has the opposite of the intended effect: the music can seem inconsequential. Grainger’s own high-spirited recorded performances or the hearty approach to choral works taken by John Eliot Gardiner on his ‘Danny Boy’ album (Philips, 4/96) are not the only ways to go with this music. But they’re preferable to Glynn’s deliberate tempos, sentimental ritards at the final cadences and unusually long pauses between songs that leave you thinking, ‘Can we please get on with it?’

Claire Booth’s girlish soprano might seem appropriate for folk song, though her fast, quick vibrato obscures her diction, sometimes for entire stanzas, which is a particular problem with the more regional dialects that make sense when articulated clearly but are less comprehensible when read in the accompanying booklet. The engineering is the final culprit – distant microphone placement adds to the overall effect of remote, impersonal performances of music that has the power to enter your bloodstream. No clear-cut alternative is available since Grainger tends to be programmed – sensibly – in mixed-composer anthologies, such as Felicity Lott’s adorable ‘Favourite English Songs’ (Chandos, 7/90).

-- David Patrick Stearns, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/26/percy-grainger-folk-songs-cd-review-claire-booth-christopher-glynn-avie
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/album-reviews/percy-grainger-folk-music-claire-booth-soprano-christopher-glynn-piano-album-review-1.3100679
https://www.allmusic.com/album/percy-grainger-folk-music-mw0003032143

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Percy Grainger (8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career, he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many adaptations of other composers' works. Despite his conservatory training, Grainger rebelled against the disciplines of the central European tradition, largely rejecting conventional forms such as symphony, sonata, concerto and opera. The piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune "Country Gardens".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Grainger

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British soprano Claire Booth has become internationally renowned both for her commitment to an extraordinary breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform. Her numerous concert appearances have resulted in close associations with the BBC Symphony and the BBC Proms, City of Birmingham Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Intecontemporain, the Aldeburgh and Holland Festivals and other recent debut appearances with both the Berlin Deutsche Symphonie, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and the London Philharmonic.
http://www.claire-booth.com/

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Christopher Glynn (born 5 September 1974 in Leicester) is an English classical pianist and festival director. Glynn studied piano with John Streets in France and Malcolm Martineau at the Royal Academy of Music. He is especially noted for his work as an accompanist with many leading classical singers, including Claire Booth, Bernarda Fink, Jonas Kaufmann, Dame Felicity Lott, and Bryn Terfel. Glynn has performed at venues including Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Festival and the BBC Proms. He is also Artistic Director of the Ryedale Festival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Glynn
http://www.cglynn.com/

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