Arthur Sullivan - Songs (Various Artists)

Information

Composer: Arthur Sullivan

CD1:

1. Five Shakespeare Songs: Sign no more, ladies
2. Five Shakespeare Songs: Orpheus with his lute
3. Five Shakespeare Songs: O mistress mine
4. Five Shakespeare Songs: The Willow Song
5. Five Shakespeare Songs: Rosalind
6. Love laid his sleepless head (from 'The Merry Wives of Windsor')
7. Nel ciel seren (from 'The Merchant of Venice')
8. Where the bee sucks (from 'The Tempest')
9. I wish to tune my quivering lyre
10. Sweet Day
11. Arabian Love Song
12. Birds in the night
13. A life that lives for you
14. Once again
15. Golden Days
16. Guinevere!
17. None but I can say
18. O Israel
19. St. Agnes' Eve
20. Edward Gray
21. What does little birdie say?
22. O swallow, swallow
23. Tears, idle tears

CD2:

1. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 1, On the Hill
2. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 2, At the Window
3. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 3, Gone!
4. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 4, Winter
5. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 5, Spring
6. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 6, The Letter
7. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 7, No Answer
8. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 8, No Answer
9. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 9, The Answer
10. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 10, When?
11. The Window, or the Songs of the Wrens: No. 11, Marriage Morning
12. Bid me at least goodbye (for the play 'An Old Jew')
13. E tu nol sai (for the play 'The Profligate')
14. Ich möchte hinaus es jauchzen
15. Lied mit Thränen halbgeschrieben
16. Oh! Ma charmante
17. I would I were a King
18. Sad Memories
19. Ever
20. Mary Morison
21. Old Love Letters
22. County Guy
23. Sweethearts

Mary Bevan, soprano

Ben Johnson, tenor

Ashley Riches, bass-baritone

David Owen Norris, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010935

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Review

Sullivan’s songs, like so much of his music away from his collaboration with Gilbert, have largely vanished into obscurity, so this excellent set from pianist, composer and presenter David Owen Norris and three fine young British singers offers a much-needed reappraisal. Though it avoids a chronological approach in favour of groupings largely by writer, it covers Sullivan’s entire career, from his 1855 schoolboy effort ‘O Israel’ to ‘Tears, idle tears’, written shortly before his death in 1900.

Sullivan took song composition seriously after his exposure to Lieder during his Leipzig years, and Schubert is a point of reference and departure throughout. His influence can be felt in the shaping of vocal lines and accompaniments, and, most importantly, in The Window, or The Songs of the Wrens, a song-cycle modelled on Die schöne Müllerin for which Tennyson provided the text. Sullivan’s choice of poetry, not all of it in English, could be variable, but his natural gifts as a melodist compel admiration even in songs that veer towards a now unfashionable sentimentality, such as his settings of Lionel H Lewin, a close friend, whose verses are apt to cloy.

Norris’s singers reflect the directness of the music with a sincerity in performance that proves persuasive throughout. The vocal challenges are greater than some might suppose. Ben Johnson is occasionally pushed in his upper registers, while Ashley Riches sometimes reveals a vibrato when his voice is under pressure. Both of them, however, can also be utterly beguiling. Johnson sings The Window with discreet passion, brings wit and regret to ‘O swallow, swallow’ and plenty of swagger to his Italian serenades and gondola songs. Riches taps a vein of noble anguish in ‘Edward Gray’ and beautifully probes the emotional ambiguities beneath the urbanity of the Hugo setting ‘O, ma charmante.’

Mary Bevan, meanwhile, is in glorious voice throughout. ‘Orpheus with his Lute’ is particularly exquisite, and her sense of line and floated high pianissimos are ravishing in ‘O Israel’. She manages to make ‘What does little birdie say’ remarkably touching, despite Tennyson’s dreadful poem. Yet there’s also enough power in the voice to steer her through bigger numbers such as ‘Guinevere!’, written for Thérèse Tietjens, a notable Norma and Trovatore Leonora in her day. Norris is finely alert throughout to the stylistic shifts and complexities of Sullivan’s piano writing, as well as providing scholarly booklet notes. They contain a hint that another set of Sullivan songs might be forthcoming: I eagerly await it, if so.

-- Tim Ashley, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/May/Sullivan_songs_CHAN10935.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Jun/Sullivan_songs_CHAN10935.htm

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/sir-arthur-sullivan-songs-sung-mary-bevan-ben-johnson-and-ashley-riches/

https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/sullivan-songs-mary-bevan-ben-johnson-ashley-riches-david-owen-norris/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/sir-arthur-sullivan-songs-mw0003019224

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sullivan-Johnson-Ashley-Riches-Chandos/dp/B01N17VYB5

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Arthur Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Sullivan composed 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous hymns and other church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. The best known of his hymns and songs include "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".

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

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