A great tour of the British Isles
Terry Blain enjoys Tenebrae’s superb championship of neglected gems
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
Part Songs of the British Isles: works by Murrill, Bridge, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Walker, Bingham, Stanford, Harvey and Chilcott Tenebrae/nigel Short
Bene Arte SIGCD 904 65:04 mins
The British part song is, as conductor Nigel Short acknowledges in the booklet, still a relatively under-excavated area. It contains treasures in it, not least Herbert Murrill’s two Shakespeare settings from Twelfth Night, a blithe, lilting ‘O Mistress Mine’ and a harmonically adventurous ‘Come Away, Death’. Both are
In ‘Full Fathom Five’ the opening bell sequence is exquisitely weighted
sung with delicate sentience by Short’s choir Tenebrae, the pulse and phrasing of the musical lines determined by a refined attention to words and meaning. The same is true of Vaughan Williams’s Three Shakespeare Songs, where the performance of ‘Full Fathom Five’ is as fine as you will get, the opening ‘ding-dong bell’ sequence exquisitely weighted, the welling and lapping of the ocean waves graphically rendered in the aquatic echo-chamber Short conjures from his vocal forces.
A watery grave also features in Judith Bingham’s remarkable The Drowned Lovers, where
Martha Mclorinan’s haunted solo is underlaid by billowing, deep-lying ensemble textures, pinned to the thrumming basses. A spooky, flickering account of Elgar’s Owls underlines the ability of Short and his outstandingly responsive singers to create riveting atmosphere, and communicate to the listener the import and implications of a song’s narrative. There is extroversion, too, in The Runner and One’s-self I Sing, settings of Walt Whitman by
Bob Chilcott, and in a witty, brilliantly nimble interpretation of Frank Bridge’s The Bee, to words by Tennyson.
Full texts and enlightening notes on the music are included, further enhancing the attractions of this intelligently assembled, superbly sung collection.