Certainly, it’s no accident of programming that finds these works all on the same disc. What’s amazing is the fact that they are rarely–or never–recorded. The orchestral song cycle Our Hunting Fathers, written by a 23-year-old Britten to a text by W.H. Auden, was nothing if not a brazenly adventurous and exceedingly challenging work for all concerned. Its first audience (and the caught-off-guard London Philharmonic) was left fairly bewildered and astonished–especially when the rest of the program contained the safe and instantly familiar sounds of Brahms and Vaughan Williams. Premiered by soprano Sophie Wyss, its finest interpreter proved to be tenor Peter Pears whose 1961 performance recorded here brims with an intense ferocity that threatens to boil over but instead keeps us at our seat’s edge.
The hunting of animals–a subject that appears in both the early Our Hunting Fathers (1936) and in the title poem of Britten’s last song cycle, Who are these children? (“Who are these children gathered here/Out of the fire and smoke/That with remembering faces stare/Upon the foxing folk?”), written 30 years later–is to Britten vividly symbolic of wrenching themes that seemed both to disturb his senses and stir his creative energy his whole life: Destruction of the earth, of nature, of children, of the innocent, and the incomprehensible incongruities and cruelties of war. These songs to poems by Scottish poet William Soutar leave us with unforgettable impressions and questions drawn from images of the wanton bombing of civilians, the blood of children, and the ruthless axing of a 200-year-old oak. Pears’ performance of the 12 songs, with Britten at the piano at Aldeburgh in 1971, the year of the cycle’s premiere, is another gem. And it’s the only one available. (Unfortunately, no texts are provided–an unacceptable omission.)
The dark but compelling themes are repeated and reinforced by Canticle III, a setting of Edith Sitwell’s The Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn, for tenor, horn, and piano, and Britten’s fascinating “Reflections on a song of John Dowland”, the Lachrymae for viola and piano. The performances are first rate, definitive, and essential. The sound varies from very fine stereo to decent mono. [2/11/2000]
