Choral Edition: Volume 2

 

Mostly sacred music.

Aside from Britten's ubiquitous A Ceremony of Carols, I am largely unfamiliar with his sacred music.

It is all sung well, especially with the Finzi Singers' fulsome sound and Paul Spicer's knowledgeable leadership.

It simply seems there isn't anything major here aside form the Christmas cantata, although it is great for listeners like me who just want to explore the music of Britten.

A review from 2021

Volume 2 of Chandos’ Benjamin Britten Choral Edition leans towards his liturgical and sacred music. Britten, being who he was, injected a little of the secular into his sacred music, but his atmosphere had the cathedral in mind. The big work is the evergreen A Ceremony of Carols, but we also get his quirky Missa Brevis, two settings of the Te Deum and Jubilate Deo sequences, as well as smaller choral bits and bobs.

A Ceremony of Carols is performed by the adult sopranos and altos of The Finzi Singers, not the SATB version. Of course, Britten had boy trebles in mind for this work, and there are endless recordings with that type of choir, but adult women performing are less recorded comparatively. The balance of choir to harp, here played by Susan Drake, is near ideal, one of the finer I have heard, especially since the harp can sound brittle or pushed back or forward against the chorus elsewhere. It should be mentioned that the pronunciations of the Olde English texts almost sound Nordic to my ears, but I see in the liner notes a speech coach was hired for this perfomance, so I assume it lies towards authenticity.

I am not as familiar with Britten’s liturgical music. Most of it comes with pipe organ, and Britten is mighty characterful when writing for that mighty wind instrument; it is far from mere background or accompaniment. The Missa Brevis is a bit of an odd affair, with the concluding Agnus Dei/Dona Nobis Pacem being one of the more unsettlingly wry settings I have heard from that text to music. The shorter Antiphon, Wedding Anthem, and Sweet Was the Song have a nice balance of soloist to chorus, with soprano Carys Lane rising to the top.

I am not as enamored with Volume 2 compared to the first. I am largely unfamiliar with some of this music, but it also doesn’t strike me as firmly as the other entries in this series. It is all beautifully sung, and I love the fulsome tone of The Finzi Singers, caught wonderfully by Chandos. Paul Spicer is a bit of a Britten specialist, and he moves the 18-member chamber choir purposefully and musically through Britten’s difficult choral writing. Andrew Lumsden’s organ is very good, although the chiffy nature from some of the movements are not my favorite of his stop choices.

Still this is a very fine recording. The Sixteen under Harry Christophers recorded much of this same repertoire on Coro, and they have a comparable style. I think The Finzi Singers cohere together as an ensemble better than The Sixteen, not quite as upfront in recorded persepctive, but both are very fine. Of course, much of this music was meant for boy trebles, and you can find many recordings as Britten intended.

But my preferences are with adult ensembles, and I like the strength of Spicer leading The Finzi Singers. Their complete collection is offered together on Chandos and is preferable to have it all.

 

 

 

 

Works
Jubilate Deo in E-flat Major (2.39)
Te Deum (8.36)
Antiphon, op. 56b (6.04)
Missa Brevis, op. 63 (10.19)
A Wedding Anthem, op. 46 (9.45)
Sweet Was the Song the Virgin Sang (2.59)
Ceremony of Carols, op. 21 (21.48)
Festival Te Deum, op. 32 (6.35)
Jubilate Deo in C Major (2.32)

Performers
Susan Drake, harp
Andrew Lumsden, organ
Finzi Singers
Paul Spicer, conductor

Label: Chandos
Year: 1998
Total Timing: 71.49

 

 

 

 

A survey of Britten's sacred music, mostly...

As with the others in the series, I love the singing from the Finzi Singers and the choral leadership from Paul Spicer.

Not everything here is a masterpiece, butt that is not a measure of a good recording or performance.