{"title":"George Benjamin","description":"\u003cp\u003eb. 1960. composer. in the Spectralism tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLeading British contemporary composer, known for meticulous orchestration and operatic works with librettist Martin Crimp. Written on Skin is his most celebrated opera.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSignature works:\u003c\/em\u003e Written on Skin, Into the Little Hill, Into the Little Hill, Ringed by the Flat Horizon, A Mind of Winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"benjamin-a-mind-of-winter-etc-benjamin-94664","title":"Benjamin: A Mind Of Winter, Etc \/ Benjamin, Elder, Et Al","description":"\u003cp\u003eGeorge Benjamin is a contemporary composer known best among small circles, but with a loyal international following. This recording contains five of his pieces, and they share a common style. Benjamin treats a composition as a landscape: a kind of blank, rolling panorama onto which he affixes musical ideas. His sound is very textured and evocative. 'Ringed by the Flat Horizon,' for example, portrays a storm that overtakes a vast open space. The music begins ominously and contains a variety of created sound effects along with rapid fire crescendos into huge orchestral crashes. 'A Mind In Winter' is contrarily a setting of \"The Snowman\" (a poem by Wallace Stevens), and yet is built upon the same sort of abstract picture-building and sweeping evocative gestures for the voice. Benjamin's vocabulary is developed from the modern schools of atonality, and his teacher Messiaen is a clear and strong influence on his work. For those attracted to the modern schools of classical composition, they will find a great many layers to be unveiled in this recording.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nimbus","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44625610506474,"sku":"710357564321","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/305119.jpg?v=1778294923"},{"product_id":"britten-variations-on-a-theme-of-frank-bridge-simple-symp-095115659229","title":"BRITTEN: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge \/ Simple Symp","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44624164290794,"sku":"095115659229","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/106910.jpg?v=1778347079"},{"product_id":"britten-complete-cello-suites-7318590004463","title":"Britten: Complete Cello Suites","description":"Classical Music","brand":"BIS","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44624134602986,"sku":"7318590004463","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2265659.jpg?v=1778295761"},{"product_id":"britten-rape-of-lucretia-the","title":"Britten: Rape of Lucretia (The)","description":"Britten: Rape of Lucretia (The)","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44711935738090,"sku":"095115925423","price":43.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/107390.jpg?v=1778346623"},{"product_id":"britten-string-quartets","title":"BRITTEN: String Quartets","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44712106787050,"sku":"095115966426","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/244188.jpg?v=1778186735"},{"product_id":"noyes-fludde-ceremony-carols","title":"NOYES FLUDDE  CEREMONY CAROLS","description":"Classical Music","brand":"SOMM Recordings","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44722810487018,"sku":"748871221222","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/566934.jpg?v=1778343337"},{"product_id":"benjamin-picture-a-day-like-this-an-opera-in-seven-scenes","title":"Benjamin: Picture a day like this - an opera in seven scenes","description":"An ordinary day. A terrible event. The death of her infant child sets in motion one woman's search for a life-restoring miracle. All she needs to do - in the course of a single day - is find one genuinely happy human being. But when every encounter ends in disappointment, she turns finally to the mysterious owner of a magnificent garden. Recorded during the first performances, as part of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, at the Theatre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, France, from 5th July 2023.","brand":"Nimbus","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012544254186,"sku":"0710357811623","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4353059-3201951_ff85b39e-0716-4ffa-8ef6-4733ff022393.jpg?v=1778235082"},{"product_id":"piano-benjamin-complete-piano-works","title":"Benjamin: Complete Piano Works","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe only collected survey of George Benjamin’s\n\u003cbr\u003epiano music on record, from a Dutch pianist\n\u003cbr\u003ewho specialises in new music and has worked\n\u003cbr\u003eclosely with the composer.\n\u003cbr\u003eBenjamin was an accomplished pianist as well\n\u003cbr\u003eas composer from his early years, and it seems\n\u003cbr\u003enatural in retrospect that his first published\n\u003cbr\u003ework should be the Piano Sonata he composed\n\u003cbr\u003ein 1977-8, as a prodigious student of Olivier\n\u003cbr\u003eMessiaen and Yvonne Loriod. Certain harmonic\n\u003cbr\u003etouches may mark the sonata out as the work\n\u003cbr\u003eof ‘a Messiaen pupil’ but the unsettled, leaping\n\u003cbr\u003egestural sense of the piece is particular to\n\u003cbr\u003eBenjamin. So much of Benjamin’s later music is\n\u003cbr\u003efascinatingly prefigured here, including a sense\n\u003cbr\u003eof timing for a gradual accumulation of tension\n\u003cbr\u003e(‘stormy eruptions’ and ‘savage violence’ in\n\u003cbr\u003ethe composer’s words) that marks out his first\n\u003cbr\u003emajor orchestral score, Ringed by the Flat\n\u003cbr\u003eHorizon. Underlying that sense of timing is a\n\u003cbr\u003efeeling for dramatic gesture which has found\n\u003cbr\u003eits natural expression in a series of operas\n\u003cbr\u003ewritten during the last 20 years.\n\u003cbr\u003eDedicated to Loriod, Sortilèges (1981) makes\n\u003cbr\u003eclear its French heritage in the notes as well as\n\u003cbr\u003ethe title, while the three subsequent Studies\n\u003cbr\u003efor piano, composed over the next four years,\n\u003cbr\u003efind Benjamin working out intricate rhythmic\n\u003cbr\u003eproblems and their solutions. Even the\n\u003cbr\u003eRelativity Rag takes a quirky, sideways look at\n\u003cbr\u003eits superficially familiar material. The next\n\u003cbr\u003epiano pieces had to wait until 2001, and the\n\u003cbr\u003eShadowlines which Benjamin wrote for PierreLaurent Aimard. This set of six canonic preludes\n\u003cbr\u003etakes Benjamin’s inclination to distill and pare\n\u003cbr\u003eback to a new level, while the piano writing\n\u003cbr\u003eitself is richer and more unselfconsciously\n\u003cbr\u003einformed by the heritage of piano literature.\n\u003cbr\u003eFinally, there are the Piano Figures of 2004,\n\u003cbr\u003ewritten for students of the piano and\n\u003cbr\u003eaccordingly pitched at a technically lower level\n\u003cbr\u003ethan the other pieces, but no less preoccupied\n\u003cbr\u003ewith the rhythmic games and sudden swerves\n\u003cbr\u003eof thought that are hallmarks of his most\n\u003cbr\u003ecomplex music. All these pieces have been\n\u003cbr\u003erecorded, but never by the same pianist,\n\u003cbr\u003emaking Erik Bertsch’s new collection unique,\n\u003cbr\u003eand indispensable for any collector of new\n\u003cbr\u003emusic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Piano Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012656615658,"sku":"5029365102872","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4322671-3141885.jpg?v=1778236585"},{"product_id":"britten-complete-music-for-cello-solo-and-cello-and-piano-5028421947297","title":"Britten: Complete Music for Cello Solo and Cello and Piano \/ Ivashkin, Zolinsky","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis double-disc set of new recordings includes the world premier recording of Cello Sonata in A, composed by Britten as a boy of 13 years of age. A culminating release in celebration of Britten's centenary. The booklet's liner notes were written by the artists. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Brilliant Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012869673194,"sku":"5028421947297","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2393709.jpg?v=1778311765"},{"product_id":"britten-piano-concerto-violin-concerto-095115176429","title":"Britten: Piano Concerto - Violin Concerto","description":"\u003cp\u003eTying in with the 100-year anniversary in 2013 of the composer’s birth, we here present two such works, performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Gardner with Chandos stars Tasmin Little and Howard Shelley. The Violin Concerto, here performed dazzlingly by Little, is essentially tragic and weighty in tone, perhaps reflecting his growing concern with the escalation of war-related hostilities. Under Shelley’s fingers the Piano Concerto – in a rare recording with the original third movement, “Recitative and Aria” – is generally lighter and brighter, more transparent and simpler in style.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012883599594,"sku":"095115176429","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2225604.jpg?v=1778305602"},{"product_id":"britten-saint-nicholas-a-ceremony-of-carols-temple","title":"Britten: Saint Nicholas - A Ceremony of Carols \/ Temple, BBC Concert Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eCrouch End Festival Chorus presents two Britten classics: Saint Nicolas and A Ceremony of Carols. Full of vibrancy and drama, Saint Nicolas is performed alongside the fabulous BBC Concert Orchestra and features tenor Mark Le Brocq as well as Coldfall Primary School Choir, members of Hertfordshire Chorus and Hannah Brine Choirs. The ever-popular A Ceremony of Carols is performed with harpist Sally Pryce, with both works conducted by David Temple. A Ceremony of Carols (1942\/3) and Saint Nicolas (1948) are the earliest works that Benjamin Britten composed for public performance primarily for boys’ voices. These performances, recorded here at London’s All Saint’s Church and Alexandra Palace Theatre, truly show how glorious these two pieces of music are, and why they have remained so popular.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis album stands out, for it might be considered an authentic performance. The main choir, gallery choir, boy soloists, and duo pianists here are all amateurs, and they bring a sense of discovery to the work and its narrative quality that's different from professional choir performances. The Ceremony of Carols has the requisite bright innocence, and the boy soloists in Saint Nicolas are top-notch. Conductor David Temple deserves special notice here, fusing the members of four separate choirs into a seamless whole. The engineering in the recently restored and acoustically ideal Alexandra Palace Theater is a bonus on top of this fine slice of the English choral tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012925116650,"sku":"635212064924","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3862718-2610420.jpg?v=1778226527"},{"product_id":"britten-spring-symphony-welcome-ode-psalm-150-095115178225","title":"Britten: Spring Symphony - Welcome Ode - Psalm 150","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis re-release of the Spring Symphony, complemented by two smaller but equally life-confirming works by Britten, marks the composer’s centenary year. It also forms part of Chandos’ Richard Hickox Legacy series. Hickox conducts the London Symphony Orchestra with the soloists Elizabeth Gale, Alfreda Hodgson, and Martyn Hill and a number of UK choirs.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012958965994,"sku":"095115178225","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2266424.jpg?v=1778312616"},{"product_id":"britten-still-falls-the-rain","title":"Britten: Still Falls the Rain","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Avie Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013053337834,"sku":"822252225822","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2041089.jpg?v=1778320396"},{"product_id":"britten-war-requiem-ancerl-czech-philharmonic-prague-228340","title":"Britten: War Requiem \/ Ancerl, Czech Philharmonic","description":"\u003cp\u003eBenjamin Britten’s music formed one of the pillars of the Czech Philharmonic’s concert programmes under its chief conductor Karel Ančerl. The famous Variations on a Theme of Purcell was in all likelihood the most frequently performed work (in 1962 also in England), and this CD contains the previously unreleased 1958 recording in the original version without narration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe enchanting and joyous Spring Symphony, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, was presented in Czech in Prague by Ančerl, the Czech Philharmonic and the finest soloists of the time. Forming a stark contrast to these two works is the War Requiem, a grand piece commemorating the victims of the most gruesome armed conflict in human history. Britten dedicated it to the memory of four friends of his who died in WWII while serving in the British navy or army. The work’s Czech premiere, with the participation of superlative foreign soloists (Gerald English, John Cameron), took place less than four years after its world premiere. So enthused was he by the work that in November 1969, following his emigration to Canada, Ančerl included the War Requiem in one of his first concerts in Toronto. The conductor’s personal profound experience of the senseless barbarity of the war imbued his conception of the work with a chilling authenticity. Both of the two previously unreleased concert recordings were made by the former Czechoslovak Radio.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Supraphon","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013080404202,"sku":"099925413521","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2258095.jpg?v=1778312822"},{"product_id":"britten-death-in-venice-bartoletti-miller-riga-89480","title":"Britten: Death In Venice \/ Bartoletti, Miller, Riga, Hendricks [blu-ray]","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=522210\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Benjamin Britten’s last opera Death in Venice is based on the novella by Thomas Mann. It was first performed in England in 1973. The astringent score is marked by some haunting soundscapes of 'ambiguous Venice'. The boy Tadzio is portrayed by a silent dancer, gamelan-like percussion accompaniment. The music of the opera is precise, direct and movingly understated. Britten had been contemplating the novella for many years and began work in September 1970 with approaches to Piper and to Golo Mann, son of the author. Because of agreements between Warner Brothers and the estate of Thomas Mann for the production of Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film, Britten was advised not to see the movie when it was released. According to Colin Graham, director of the first production of the opera, some colleagues of the composer who did see the film found the relationship between Tadzio and Aschenbach \"too sentimental and salacious\". This contributed to the decision that Tadzio and his family and friends would be portrayed by non-speaking dancers. Themes in the work of \"formalism in art and the perilous dignity of the acclaimed artist\" have been noted. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Marlin Miller, tenor – Gustav von Aschenbach; Scott Hendricks, baritone – Traveller and other roles;François Bittar, countertenor – Voice of Apollo; Allessandro Riga, dancer – Tadzio;\u003cbr\u003e  La Fenice Theatre Orchestra and Chorus; Bruno Bartoletti, conductor\u003cbr\u003e  DIRECTION \u0026amp; COSTUMES: Pierluigi Pizzi\u003cbr\u003e  CHOREOGRAPHY: Gheorghe Iancu\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Recorded Live at Teatro La Fenice, Venice 2008\u003cbr\u003e  NTSC; All Regions\u003cbr\u003e  Running time 155 min. \u003cbr\u003e  Sung in English\u003cbr\u003e  Subtitles: Italian, German, French, Spanish\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dynamic","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46013105373418,"sku":"8007144556082","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2248408.jpg?v=1780352044"},{"product_id":"britten-b-choral-works-vol-3-the-sixteen-h-christoph","title":"BRITTEN, B.: Choral Works, Vol. 3 (The Sixteen, H. 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In June 1932, the eighteen-year-old Benjamin Britten heard a radio adaptation of James’s story and noted in his diary that it was ‘wonderful, impressive but terribly eerie \u0026amp; scary’. He read the novella for himself in January the following year, telling his diary that he still found it ‘glorious \u0026amp; eerie’ and judging it to be an ‘incredible masterpiece’. His subsequent operatic setting is unequivocally a masterpiece, and here receives a first-class production made for television with an outstanding cast led by Robert Murray and Rhian Lois, accompanied by Sinfonia of London and conducted by John Wilson.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46013120676074,"sku":"095115529096","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4012990-2764533.jpg?v=1778227527"},{"product_id":"mirror-butterfly-the-migrant-liberation-movement-suite-252578","title":"Mirror Butterfly: The Migrant Liberation Movement Suite","description":"\u003cp\u003eGet ready for revelation! \u003cem\u003eMirror Butterfly: The Migrant Liberation Movement Suite\u003c\/em\u003e is an epic jazz opera spanning four continents and five centuries. The opera is a tribute to the resistance of migrants to the destruction of ecologies, economies, and cultures unleashed by slavery, conquest, and colonization- in short, a history of capitalism from the point of view of women warriors from Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. A trinity of revolutionary women converge to tell stories of migration, singing a Sermon on the Mount to bring down Babylon. The plot of \u003cem\u003eMirror Butterfly\u003c\/em\u003e is inspired by \u003cem\u003eThe Story of the Sword\u003c\/em\u003e, a Mayan parable shared with us by the Zapatista autonomous schools. The story symbolizes the centuries-long Mayan resistance to the conquest and Indigenous genocide through avatars of a tree, a stone, and water. In their story, a sword (representing the conquest) cuts down a tree (Mayan society). The tree transforms into a rock, which is underground and still; but the sword hacks at it and shatters it, though not without damage. Finally, the stone transforms into water, which the sword is unable to resist. The sword rusts and withers away in this eternal elemental. The water symbolizes the flourishing grassroots-organizing of indigenous communities and their allies in contemporary Mexico. The lesson of the tale is that we shall live to see an indigenous-centric Mexico and, indeed, an entire world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Innova Recordings","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013130801386,"sku":"726708602925","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3687490-2414157.jpg?v=1778253800"},{"product_id":"the-best-of-britten-124890","title":"The Best Of Britten","description":"The outstanding English composer working in the mid-20th century, Benjamin Britten won a significant international reputation, whilst remaining thoroughly English in inspiration.","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013148168426,"sku":"730099683821","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1367464.jpg?v=1778335086"},{"product_id":"britten-cello-suites-jakob-spahn-397668","title":"Britten: Cello Suites \/ Jakob Spahn","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Gift Voucher: six Suites for Slava” This note, scribbled on a paper napkin was a promise supposedly made in 1964 by Benjamin Britten to the cellist Mstislav Leopoldovich “Slava” Rostropovich. It would appear that he wanted to compose for his friend a contemporary counterpart to Bach’s Solo Suites, which for any cellist are a sort of Old Testament in the cello repertoire. Britten took Baroque dance movements as a model and formed them into modern character pieces. Both from the point of view of form and tone, they exude a kinship and affinity with Johann Sebastian Bach. The fact that he actually only composed three suites was due to Britten’s poor health and his death not long afterwards. Britten’s encounter with Mstislav Rostropovich was the motive and inspiration for his cello works: they had met in the early 1960s through Dmitry Shostakovich at a performance by Rostropovich of the Soviet composer’s First Cello Concerto. Shostakovich is said to have complained after the concert of bruised ribs because during the concert Britten had often jabbed him in the ribs out of pure enthusiasm for the music. That enthusiasm led Benjamin Britten to dedicate his cello suites to the exceptional cellist. (Jakob Spahn)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Haenssler Classic","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013155344618,"sku":"881488200638","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3890461-2685440.jpg?v=1778240289"},{"product_id":"blest-cecilia-britten-choral-works-i-the-87895","title":"Blest Cecilia - Britten Choral Works I \/ The Sixteen","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/p10s10.gif\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Fans of Benjamin Britten and of The Sixteen will rejoice at this reissue of material from the choir's acclaimed three-volume Britten series originally recorded for the now-defunct Collins label. (Presumably all of the music from the complete set eventually will appear under the Sixteen's new Coro emblem.) If you know the earlier recordings, you'll quickly notice that the program here is different from the original configurations: there are five selections from Collins' Vol. 3--Hymn to the Virgin, A Hymn of Saint Columba, Hymn to Saint Peter, Jubilate Deo, Festival Te Deum; three from Vol. 2--Rejoice in the Lamb; Antiphon; Te Deum in C; and the Hymn to Saint Cecilia from Vol. 1.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Recorded performances of Britten's choral music don't get any better than this. No one will argue that this choir was\/is capable of singing anything, and singing it as well as or better than anyone--and these Britten pieces are made for exuberant, exultant, exacting singing that the Sixteen can do without a blip, a glitch, or the slightest faltering step. From the fawning, devotional A Hymn to the Virgin to the wild and glorious Rejoice in the Lamb, this is music most perfectly created and most grandly and emphatically presented. A first-class effort; a classic.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  --David Vernier\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Works:\u003cbr\u003e  Hymn to the Virgin\u003cbr\u003e  A Hymn of Saint Columba\u003cbr\u003e  Hymn to Saint Peter\u003cbr\u003e  Antiphon\u003cbr\u003e  Te Deum in C\u003cbr\u003e  Jubilate Deo\u003cbr\u003e  Hymn to Saint Cecilia\u003cbr\u003e  Festival Te Deum\u003cbr\u003e  Rejoice in the Lamb\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Coro","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013194043626,"sku":"828021600623","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/821670.jpg?v=1778336890"},{"product_id":"a-britten-collection-7-dvd-set-84116","title":"A Britten Collection","description":"\u003cp\u003eOutstanding singers, conductors and directors come together in five diverse but compelling operas by Benjamin Britten. The turbulent, inward fishing community of Peter Grimes is transposed to a merciless 1980s society in Richard Jones' production. An 'outstanding' Sarah Connolly (Guardian) stars in The Rape of Lucretia, navigating the difficult tale with superb poise. Billy Budd is grippingly staged aboard the claustrophobic MS Indomitable, with Jacques Imbrailo portraying the troubled sailor in the 2010 Glyndebourne Festival Opera production by Michael Grandage. More light-hearted is the Royal Opera House staging of Gloriana, penned by Britten to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and featuring Susan Bullock as the monarch. Finally, Edward Gardner conducts the English National Opera in Deborah Warner's highly acclaimed production of Death in Venice, In which John Graham-Hall stars as the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach. These productions from some of the world's best opera houses offer five masterful performances that are an ideal way to experience Benjamin Britten's music. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true Surround Sound. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA BRITTEN COLLECTION\u003cbr\u003e (7-DVD Box Set) \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e PETER GRIMES \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Peter Grimes - John Graham Hall\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Boy - Francesco Malvuccio\u003cbr\u003e Ellen Orford - Susan Gritton\u003cbr\u003e Captain Balstrode - Christopher Purves\u003cbr\u003e Auntie - Felicity Palmer\u003cbr\u003e First Niece - Ida Falk Winland\u003cbr\u003e Second Niece - Simona Mihai\u003cbr\u003e Bob Boles - Peter Hoare\u003cbr\u003e Swallow - Daniel Okulitch\u003cbr\u003e Mrs. Sedley - Catherine Wyn-Rogers\u003cbr\u003e Rev. Horace Adams - Christopher Gillett\u003cbr\u003e Ned Keene - George von Bergen\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Milan La Scala Chorus and Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e Robin Ticciati, conductor\u003cbr\u003e Richard Jones, stage director\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Recorded live at the Teatro alla Scala, June 2012 \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Lucretia - Sarah Connolly\u003cbr\u003e Tarquinius - Christopher Maltman\u003cbr\u003e Bianca - Catherine Wyn-Rogers\u003cbr\u003e Lucia - Mary Nelson\u003cbr\u003e Junius - Leigh Melrose\u003cbr\u003e Collatinus - Clive Bayley\u003cbr\u003e Female Chorus - Orla Boylan\u003cbr\u003e Male Chorus - John Mark Ainsley\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e English National Opera Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e Paul Daniel, conductor\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e David McVicar, stage director\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Recorded live at the Aldeburgh Festival, The Maltings, Snape, 2001 \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e BILLY BUDD\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Captain Vere - John Mark Ainsley\u003cbr\u003e Billy Budd - Jacques Imbrailo\u003cbr\u003e Claggart - Phillip Ens\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Redburn - Iain Paterson\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Flint - Matthew Rose\u003cbr\u003e Lieutenant Ratcliffe - Darren Jeffery\u003cbr\u003e Red Whiskers - Alasdair Elliott\u003cbr\u003e Donald - John Moore\u003cbr\u003e Dansker - Jeremy White\u003cbr\u003e Novice - Ben Johnson\u003cbr\u003e Squeak - Colin Judson\u003cbr\u003e Bosun - Richard Mosley-Evans \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Glyndebourne Chorus\u003cbr\u003e London Philharmonic Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e Mark Elder, conductor \u003cbr\u003e Michael Grandage, stage director \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Opera House, 8 and 11 June 2010 \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e GLORIANA\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Queen Elizabeth I - Susan Bullock\u003cbr\u003e Earl of Essex - Toby Spence\u003cbr\u003e Countess of Essex - Patricia Bardon\u003cbr\u003e Lord Mountjoy - Mark Stone\u003cbr\u003e Lady Rich - Kate Royal\u003cbr\u003e Sir Robert Cecil - Jeremy Carpenter\u003cbr\u003e Sir Walter Raleigh - Clive Bayley\u003cbr\u003e Ballad Singer - Brindley Sherratt\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Royal Opera Chorus\u003cbr\u003e Royal Opera House Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e Paul Daniel, conductor\u003cbr\u003e Richard Jones, stage director\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, June 2013 \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e DEATH IN VENICE\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Gustav von Aschenbach - John Graham Hall\u003cbr\u003e Traveller \/ Elderly Fop \/ Gondolier \/ Barber \/ Hotel Manger \/ Player \/ Dionysus - Andrew Shore\u003cbr\u003e Apollo - Tim Mead\u003cbr\u003e Tadzio - Sam Zaldivar\u003cbr\u003e The Polish Mother - Laura Caldow\u003cbr\u003e Two Daughters - Mia Angelina Mather \/ Xhuliana Shehu\u003cbr\u003e The Governess - Joyce Henderson\u003cbr\u003e Jaschiu - Marcio Teixeira\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e Edward Gardner, conductor\u003cbr\u003e Deborah Warner, stage director \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Recorded live at the London Coliseum, June 2013 \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e --- \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Bonus:\u003cbr\u003e - Cast gallery (all)\u003cbr\u003e - Introduction to the opera (Billy Budd, Gloriana)\u003cbr\u003e - Introduction to the designs (Billy Budd)\u003cbr\u003e - Interviews with the cast and crew (Peter Grimes)\u003cbr\u003e - Comments from the director (The Rape of Lucretia)\u003cbr\u003e - Britten’s Aldeburgh (Gloriana) \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic\u003cbr\u003e Sound format: DTS 5.1 (all) \/ + LPCM 2.0 (The Rape of Lucretia, Billy Budd, Gloriana) \/ + Dolby Digital 2.0 (Peter Grimes, Death in Venice)\u003cbr\u003e Region code: 0 (worldwide)\u003cbr\u003e Audio Language: English\u003cbr\u003e Menu Language: English\u003cbr\u003e Subtitles: English, French, German (all) + Japanese (Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana) + Korean (Death in Venice) \/ + Spanish (Billy Budd)\u003cbr\u003e Running time: 13 hrs 10 mins (opera) + 27 mins (bonus)\u003cbr\u003e No. of DVDs: 7 (DVD 9)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46013198696682,"sku":"809478011989","price":44.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3019491.jpg?v=1778303153"},{"product_id":"britten-complete-music-with-guitar-voice-948757","title":"Britten: Complete Music with Guitar \u0026 Voice \/ Meucci, Nardis","description":"\u003ctable\u003e  \u003ctbody\u003e  \u003ctr\u003e  \u003ctd\u003eThe “Songs from the Chinese”, a cycle of six songs on poems translated from the original Chinese by Arthur Waley (1889–1966), were written in 1957 and premiered the following year by the duo of Pears and Bream. By the late 50s Bream was a lutenist and guitarist of great renown and had accompanied Pears in works by Dowland and other early music of the British Isles, concerts that inspired Britten to write for the duo some music of his own. His cycle naturally invited comparison with another great set of songs from the Chinese, Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”, and the reception at the time was favourable: “as a whole, they make a statement about life (and particularly the transience of youth and beauty) as poignant and personal as Mahler’s” (critic Jeremy Noble in Tempo,1959). The sixth instalment of Britten’s lifelong project of folksong arrangements was published in November of 1961 in a second wave along with volumes four and five, which followed some 12 years after the first three volumes were issued in the 1940s. Volume Six contains six English folksongs and is the only one of the sets that he scored for voice and guitar. These folksong arrangements are as much a product of Britten’s admiration for Bream as are the “Songs from the Chinese”. In fact, when Pears and Bream premiered Britten’s song cycle at the Aldeburgh Festival (17 June 1958), they performed three of these folksongs on the same concert. Britten wrote the guitar solo “Nocturnal” after John Dowland in 1963 for Bream, who premiered it the following year (12 June 1964). The nine movements of the work are a “variations \u0026amp; theme”, progressing opposite to the usual order of a theme and variations. The model, “Come, Heavy Sleep” from the First Book of Songs by John Dowland (1563–1626), is only revealed at the end, with the variations leading up to it hinting at the song with treatments of various thematic fragments. Marcello Nardis and Duilio Meucci complete this album with three additional works by Dowland including the original “Come, Heavy Sleep” on which Britten based his Nocturnal, another well-known song, “Flow my tears”, and the lute solo “A Dream”.\u003c\/td\u003e  \u003c\/tr\u003e  \u003c\/tbody\u003e  \u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"Brilliant Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013213737194,"sku":"5028421957371","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4007922-2774009.jpg?v=1778227611"},{"product_id":"britten-billy-budd-bolton-teatro-real-de-65976","title":"Britten: Billy Budd \/ Bolton, Teatro Real de Madrid [Blu-ray]","description":"\u003cp\u003e800 liters of water, two sails, thirty pulleys, sixty hammocks : for the Bicentenary of the Teatro Real of Madrid, Deborah Warner coined a colossal production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd. “Oh, what have I done?” Captain Edward Fairfax Vere, former commander of the H.M.S. Indomitable asks himself with horror at the beginning of the opera, before recounting the tragic events that took place aboard his ship in 1797. The story revolves around a young model sailor, Billy Budd, and John Claggart, the unscrupulous master-at-arms obsessed and crazed by Billy’s angelic beauty; and follows the characters in their fall down to the most infernal depths of perversion and psychosis, exploring the themes of innocence, culpability, individual responsibility and justice. In this ambiguous and symbolic tale, drawn from Herman Melville’s last masterpiece, the composer Benjamin Britten, who returns for the occasion to symphonic opera and its infinite possibilities, unsettles and disturbs us by revealing the complexity and universality of human experience. Far from writing the characters as allegories of Good and Evil, the opera shows us instead the remorseless logic followed by the surge of one’s darkest desires. But in this opera dominated by masculinity, Deborah Warner goes beyond the story of violence, jealousy and hatred and chooses to focus instead on the collateral beauty produced by comradeship, friendship and forgiveness. Tenor Jacques Imbrailo, who knows the title role perfectly, delivers a stunning rendition of the young sailor’s part, while British singers Toby Spence and Brindley Sherratt provide solid interpretations of Captain “Starry” Vere and of John Claggart. In the pit, Ivor Bolton masterfully deploys, along with the Orchestra of the Teatro Real, all the energy and power of Britten’s fifth opera.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BelAir Classiques","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46013256630506,"sku":"3760115305540","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3820904.jpg?v=1780349559"},{"product_id":"de-la-fuente-la-longue-marche","title":"De la Fuente: La longue marche","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Aeon","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013265707242,"sku":"3760058369807","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1533260_e7b29e25-8a30-42c7-ba6b-b7c399558162.jpg?v=1778337726"},{"product_id":"britten-peter-grimes-graham-hall-gritton-ticciati-256588","title":"Britten: Peter Grimes \/ Graham-Hall, Gritton, Ticciati, La Scala Orchestra","description":"\u003cb\u003e Note: This Blu-ray Disc is playable only on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=937826\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Benjamin Britten\u003cbr\u003e  PETER GRIMES\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Peter Grimes – John Graham Hall\u003cbr\u003e  Boy – Francesco Malvuccio\u003cbr\u003e  Ellen Orford – Susan Gritton\u003cbr\u003e  Captain Balstrode – Christopher Purves\u003cbr\u003e  Auntie – Felicity Palmer\u003cbr\u003e  First Niece – Ida Falk Winland\u003cbr\u003e  Second Niece – Simona Mihai\u003cbr\u003e  Bob Boles – Peter Hoare\u003cbr\u003e  Swallow – Daniel Okulitch\u003cbr\u003e  Mrs. Sedley – Catherine Wyn-Rogers\u003cbr\u003e  Rev. Horace Adams – Christopher Gillett\u003cbr\u003e  Ned Keene – George von Bergen\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Milan La Scala Chorus and Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e  Robin Ticciati, conductor\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Richard Jones, stage director \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Recorded live at the Teatro alla Scala, June 2012 \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Bonus:\u003cbr\u003e  - Interviews with cast and crew \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Picture format: 1080i High Definition\u003cbr\u003e  Sound format: LPCM 2.0 \/ DTS 5.1\u003cbr\u003e  Region code: 0 (worldwide)\u003cbr\u003e  Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean\u003cbr\u003e  Running time: 168 mins\u003cbr\u003e  No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Robin Ticciati brings transparency and detail to the score, director Richard Jones focuses on Grimes the outsider and the entire cast gives a magnificent performance.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  – Gramophone","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46013330653418,"sku":"809478071198","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2214789.jpg?v=1778305577"},{"product_id":"britten-cello-suites-versen-141703","title":"Britten: Cello Suites \/ Versen","description":"This release of the Britten Cello Suites follows Quirine Viersen’s successful album of the Bach Suites. The album is a tribute to the artist’s good friend and producer Paul Janse, who passed away two years ago. Dutch cellist Quirine Viersen is one of the leading musical personalities of her generation. Her intense and virtuosic playing has convinced the public, the press, and her colleagues of her special musicality. She has shown broad insight in classical music literature with her concerto and recital performances as well as her festival participation. Viersen has been awarded numerous prizes at international competitions, the most important being the Young Artist Award in 2000 which was presented to her by the Credit Suisse Groupe. Viersen plays a 1715 Joseph Guarnerius Filius Andreae, provided by the Dutch National Instrument Fund.","brand":"Globe Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013337272554,"sku":"8711525525900","price":9.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3442302.jpg?v=1778298319"},{"product_id":"benjamin-into-the-little-hill-flight-dream-68338","title":"Benjamin: Into the Little Hill, Flight \u0026 Dream of the Song","description":"\u003cp\u003eWritten in his late teens: Flight, for solo flute, whose swooping crests and curlicues are fervently relished in Michael Cox's performance. Benjamin describes the piece as 'inspired by the sight of birds soaring and dipping over the peaks of the Swiss Alps'. Listening to the piece you'll hear a panoply of songs surfing the musical thermals in the alpine either: low, long-breathed cries and calls, filigree flocks of ornamentation in the atmospheric heights of the flute's register, a chorus of vapors conjured by a single instrument. Into The Little Hill is based on the Pied Piper story, allowing audiences an immediate entry point into the opera's dramaturgy. But Crimp's re-telling simultaneously updates the story, with its politicians, photographs, and limousines, and opens up further mythic dimensions to the narrative. The drama of Into the Little Hill is concisce, clear and simultaneously ambiguous, even chilling. Benjamin says, 'Martin's text is hard-edged, formal, and hyper-condensed'. The reason for its musical and dramatic success is Benjamin's unerring feeling for expressive characterisation. Each layer of Into the Little Hill's score is immediately identifiable, from the Crowd's baying cries of 'Kill them' rightat the start of the piece, to the rodentine scurrying of the rat's music, and the Mother's lamenting grief in the last scene. Dream of the Song is a mysteriously sensual and sensually strange song-cycle for countertenor, a halo of female voices that are similar in register, but so different in timbre and sound and expression, and orchestra. The counter-tenor sings poems, in English, by Jewish poets of 11th century Andalucia, themselves inspired by Arabic poetry of earlier centuries. There are images of ravishment and wonder here - moonlight, the celestial tent of the sky, a dream of a gazelle, a harp, a flute - but they are always undercut by other ideas. Above all, it's the gossamer rapier of Benjamin's music that cuts to the heart of these settings.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nimbus","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013372072170,"sku":"710357596421","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3609125.jpg?v=1778284632"},{"product_id":"britten-peter-grimes-gardner-bergen-philharmonic-359610","title":"Britten: Peter Grimes \/ Skelton, Wall, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the coveted Gramophone \u003cem\u003eRecord of the Year \u003c\/em\u003eaward!\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison – The Times. This studio recording was made following the acclaimed production at Grieghallen, in Bergen, in 2019 (repeated in Oslo and London and reviewed above). Luxuriant playing from the Bergen Philharmonic and a stellar cast under the assured direction of Edward Gardner make this a recording to treasure.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe net joy of this new recording is that Skelton, now a Grimes of considerable experience and range, has found in his vocalisation of the role a well-judged mixture of obsessive professional (sometimes rough) fisherman and troubled, confused and persecuted outsider. All this is precisely framed by Gardner’s conducting and his choice of cast. An exciting, committed, necessary and brilliantly recorded version for our times.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e– Gramophone (\u003cstrong\u003eRecording of The Month\u003c\/strong\u003e, October 2020\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46013427450090,"sku":"095115525029","price":43.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3842070-2595193.jpg?v=1778261941"},{"product_id":"britten-the-rape-of-lucretia-ainsley-boylan-221400","title":"Britten: The Rape Of Lucretia \/ Ainsley, Boylan, Bayley, Melrose, Maltman [blu-ray]","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=1064344\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Benjamin Britten\u003cbr\u003e  THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA\u003cbr\u003e  (Blu-ray Disc Version) \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Lucretia – Sarah Connolly\u003cbr\u003e  Tarquinius – Christopher Maltman\u003cbr\u003e  Bianca – Catherine Wyn-Rogers\u003cbr\u003e  Lucia – Mary Nelson\u003cbr\u003e  Junius – Leigh Melrose\u003cbr\u003e  Collatinus – Clive Bayley\u003cbr\u003e  Female Chorus – Orla Boylan\u003cbr\u003e  Male Chorus – John Mark Ainsley\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  English National Opera Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e  Paul Daniel, conductor \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  David McVicar, stage director\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Recorded live at the Aldeburgh Festival, The Maltings, Snape, 2001 \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Bonus:\u003cbr\u003e  - Cast gallery\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Picture format: 1080i High Definition\u003cbr\u003e  Sound format: LPCM 2.0 \/ DTS 5.1\u003cbr\u003e  Region code: 0 (worldwide)\u003cbr\u003e  Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean\u003cbr\u003e  Running time: 120 mins\u003cbr\u003e  No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eR E V I E W: \u003ctitle\u003e3761210.az_BRITTEN_Rape_Lucretia_Paul.html\u003c\/title\u003e   \u003cmeta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eBRITTEN \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eThe Rape of Lucretia \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003ePaul Daniel, cond; Sarah Connolly (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eLucretia\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Christopher Maltman (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eTarquinius\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); John Mark Ainsley (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eMale Chorus\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Orla Boylan (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eFemale Chorus\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Clive Bayley (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eCollatinus\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Leigh Melrose (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eJunius\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eBianca\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Mary Nelson (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eLucia\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); O of the English Natl Op \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eOPUS ARTE 7135 (Blu-ray: 120:00) Live: Aldeburgh 6\/2001 \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePremiered at Glyndebourne in July of 1946, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eThe Rape of Lucretia \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ewas Britten’s first stage work after \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ePeter Grimes, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand the first he called a “chamber opera.” It was composed for just eight singers and a chamber ensemble of 12 instrumentalists, but a good performance of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eLucretia \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003epacks at least as much of an emotional wallop as \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ePeter Grimes \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eor \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eBilly Budd, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand this performance is indeed a good one. A mood of dread and tense expectation is established in the opening scene for the Roman generals—Collatinus, Junius, and the depraved Tarquinius—that hardly lets up for the entire work. Four of the singes are truly top-notch: John Mark Ainsley and Orla Boylan as the Male and Female Chorus, Sarah Connolly in the title role, and Christopher Maltman (officially a “Barihunk,” who gets to take his shirt off for the rape scene) portraying Tarquinius. The other singers also cover their roles quite effectively. For example, the peaceful oasis in act I, scene 2, where the servants Bianca and Lucia wordlessly accompany the Female Chorus, is especially lovely. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs is frequently the case for this artist, stage director David McVicar questions, clarifies, and reconsiders. In a brief “Extra Feature,” McVicar explains that he actively rebelled against Britten’s specific instructions that the Male and Female Chorus should comment on the action, but not participate in it. Here, the two interact on stage with the other six singers, which makes the production considerably more theatrical and much less stylized. One reason, McVicar offers, is that Lucretia’s relationship with the Female Chorus can counter the typical “objectification” of the character—we can more easily understand her as something other than a sexual target. Lucretia’s costume is almost frumpish; she’s no fancier in her dress than her servants. She sports a plain, short hairstyle and wears very little jewelry. This wife of a powerful Roman general is certainly no temptress. This effort to de-glamorize the character may further confuse the already confused matter as to why Lucretia feels any sense of blame for her violation, why she won’t accept her husband’s absolution and kills herself. McVicar doesn’t seem to have much trouble with the opera’s “Christian” epilog, which was added (perhaps, it’s been said, at the urging of Peter Pears) to soften the harsh tragedy of Lucretia’s death by invoking the suffering and sacrifice of Christ. The director reminds us that the work was introduced just following World War II, when the world was attempting to come to grips with the senseless horror of the Holocaust. But a listener certainly won’t feel warm and fuzzy after the final blackout: This production maintains plenty of the moral ambiguity inherent to the score and libretto. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn keeping with the modest musical forces employed, Yannis Thavoris’s set and costume design is simple, attempting no profound commentary of its own. The recorded sound is good, with excellent detail to reveal Britten’s imaginative use of the small orchestra. Subtitle choices are English, French, German, Japanese, and Korean. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Andrew Quint \u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46013443539178,"sku":"809478071358","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2498126.jpg?v=1778387906"},{"product_id":"britten-les-illuminations","title":"Britten: Les illuminations","description":"This recording brings together three youthful masterworks all composed by Benjamin Britten before his 30th birthday. Originally released in 2005 'Britten: Les Illuminations' has been re-issued as part of Linn's ECHO series which offers a second chance to enjoy the best of the label's award-winning catalogue. These are highly insightful performances, widely considered to be modern reference versions to set next to Britten's own. Clio Gould and the ensemble demonstrate playing of impressive unanimity of purpose, joyous intensity and clarity of detail. The ensemble is joined by the Royal Philharmonic Society's 2012 'Singer of the Year' Toby Spence, for two of Britten's most popular song cycles. Toby Spence's voice is ideally suited to the wide-ranging demands that Britten makes on it; his tonal freshness and acutely observed articulation of the words are absorbing. Martin Owen, whose horn playing has drawn comparisons with Dennis Brain, is equal to every one of the near-impossible tasks set him by Britten in the Serenade. Re-defining the string orchestra, Scottish Ensemble inspires audiences with vibrant and powerful performances. Scottish Ensemble is the UK's only professional string orchestra, built around a core of twelve outstanding string players. The ensemble is known both in the UK and internationally for it's versatility and ambitious programming. Performing standing up, the individual layers bring an energetic and passionate dynamic to every performance.","brand":"Linn Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013463199978,"sku":"691062022637","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2839245.jpg?v=1778289889"},{"product_id":"britten-phaedra-a-charm-of-lullabies-lachrymae-two-po-095115167120","title":"Britten: Phaedra - A Charm of Lullabies - Lachrymae - Two Po","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013480173802,"sku":"095115167120","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1844819.jpg?v=1778341137"},{"product_id":"britten-the-choral-edition-095115177129","title":"Britten: The Choral Edition","description":"\u003cp\u003eTying in with the centenary of Britten’s birth this year, this three-disc compilation set brings together a large selection of early and late unaccompanied choral works, performed by the Finzi Singers and Paul Spicer. This disc includes A Boy was Born, Rejoice in the Lamb, and Choral Dances from Gloriana.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chandos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013480796394,"sku":"095115177129","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2248381.jpg?v=1778319131"},{"product_id":"carr-piano-music-johnson-854891","title":"Carr: Piano Music \/ Johnson","description":"\u003cp\u003eBenjamin Carr (1768-1831) was born in London. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1793. Carr was prolific as a composer, writing operas, pantomimes, masses, sacred hymns and anthems, many songs, and a prodigious amount of music for organ and pianoforte. Kirsten Johnson is a pianist, composer and recording artist of international acclaim. She has recorded 18 albums of solo piano music with Centaur, Nimbus, Delos and Guild. This includes the complete piano music of Arthur Foote, James Hewitt and Amy Beach, and world premiere recordings of Albanian piano music and Dmitri Kabalevskys op. 1. Kirstens compositions have been played around the world. Brno, for cello and piano, was performed at the Festival OSMOSE in Brussels, Belgium. Flute Vibes was premiered at Exeter College, Oxford, U.K. The premiere of Remembrance, Journey and Dance (in a version for clarinet, bassoon and piano) was given in New York City by Vent Nouveau. Dr. Johnson received her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, conducting much of her research in Albania and in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Centaur Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013487218922,"sku":"044747386225","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3964253-2705468.jpg?v=1778229878"},{"product_id":"britten-war-requiem-2","title":"Britten: War Requiem","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Gothic","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46017305936106,"sku":"000334924126","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/722969.jpg?v=1778190005"},{"product_id":"britten-winter-words-nicholas-phan-myra-huang-239038","title":"Britten: Winter Words \/ Nicholas Phan, Myra Huang","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinter Words is the solo debut release by American tenor Nicholas Phan. The recording was made in the wake of a recital tour in 2010-11 which culminated in his Carnegie debut at Weill Hall. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera studio Nick has performed with the opera companies of Los Angeles and Seattle, symphony orchestras of Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco, and the Marlboro, Ravinia and Edinburgh Festivals, among others. He sang in Stravinsky's Pulcinella with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez which was nominated for a Grammy Award. Nick presents a deeply personal perspective of Britten's music, encompassing his own performing experiences to audience reaction. He says: \"I've been a fan of Britten since playing his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with my youth orchestra in Detroit as a teenage violinist. But my great devotion to his music increased to an obsession when an excellent pianist and good friend asked if I'd perform with her at a small university in Missouri. She suggested Winter Words, saying, \"I think these would sound really great in your voice, and I've wanted to play them for ages, so indulge me.\" I researched and played through Britten's settings of Hardy's poems and before long, I was hooked.\" Approaching the performance in a small Midwestern town with some trepidation (\"how would they react?\"), Nick describes the audience's overwhelmingly positive response: \"my favourite piece on the program ... the most lasting impression.\" Such is the enduring quality of Britten's sophisticated yet direct song writing, of which Nick is a leading torch-bearer. critical acclaim for Nicholas Phan \"took hold of the music with unerring musicality, precise diction, and conversational command.\" - The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross \"an excellent young singer ... more importantly he penetrates deeply into the inner drama\" - Boston Globe \"Vocally and dramatically at the level of the finest international artists.\" - Chicago Sun Times\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Avie Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46019959816426,"sku":"822252223828","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1881999.jpg?v=1778337471"},{"product_id":"benjamin-godard-complete-piano-trios-178516","title":"Benjamin Godard: Complete Piano Trios","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eGODARD \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003ePiano Trios: in g, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eop. 32; \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003ein F, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eop. 72. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eJocelyn: Berceuse \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e•\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Parnassus Tr \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e•\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e MDG GOLD 3031615 (59:47) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eListening to these two piano trios by Benjamin Godard (1849–95), one would never guess that he trained as a violinist under Henri Vieuxtemps at the Paris Conservatory. I say this because both works are launched by a storm of piano passagework so turbulent as to leave Mendelssohn hanging on for dear life at the dock. From this one might understandably surmise that Godard was one of the great keyboard virtuosos of the 19th century, though such was not the case. This is music that is strangely beautiful and beautifully strange, which makes it difficult to describe, so perhaps some background will help. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThe Jewish Godard was born in Paris at a time when opera was all the rage and when piano and violin giants—Alkan, Chopin, Liszt, Paganini, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, etc.—filled Parisian salons and concert halls to overflowing. Godard, like his slightly earlier French Jewish compatriots Meyerbeer and Halévy, sought fame and fortune in the opera house, writing at least eight operas, only one of which, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eJocelyn\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, seems to have had any staying power. Unlike Meyerbeer and Halévy, however, Godard did not place all or most of his eggs in one basket. He was highly prolific in a number of genres, composing a surprisingly large number of works considering his relatively short life of 46 years. Among his output are concertos for violin and piano—a Naxos recording of the violin concertos with Chloë Hanslip was reviewed by Ian Lace in \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eFanfare\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e 31:6—ballets, overtures, three symphonies, three string quartets, sonatas for violin and cello, the two piano trios on this disc, plus numerous songs and solo piano pieces. Yet out of more than 150 works, Godard is today remembered mainly for the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eBerceuse\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e from his opera \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eJocelyn\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, added as an encore at the end of the current CD. It might also be mentioned that Godard was openly hostile to Wagner and outspokenly critical of the German composer’s anti-Semitism. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eIt’s too easy, perhaps intellectually lazy even, to cite Mendelssohn and Schumann as the only influences in Godard’s music and to just leave it at that, for there’s much more going on here. Take, for example, the rolling, roiling turbulence that opens the 1884 Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major. Franck’s A-Major Violin Sonata was still two years in the offing, but it’s uncanny how closely Godard’s writing presages the beginning of the second movement in Franck’s sonata. There is also a degree and a type of chromaticism in this score that would not have occurred to Mendelssohn or Schumann and that is more common to the French school; I’m thinking particularly of Fauré, who, after all, was born five years before Godard. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eLike most works of its genre and period, a second theme, quieter and more lyrical in nature, is introduced. But here is where I believe Godard is at his weakest. The desire and the impulse are there, the gesture sincere, but the ability to craft a memorable melody eludes him, and what emerges in its place is a kind of soft-shoe, salon-style music that bides its time until the next storm surge washes away the cucumber and cress sandwiches. Listen, for example, beginning at 4:20 in the first movement, and then to the violin’s entrance 10 seconds later. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThe Piano Trio No.1 in G Minor dates from 1880 and was, at one time, quite popular. Again, the piece opens in a state of tumult, with restless, agitated passagework in the piano. Here, the Mendelssohn influence is a bit more pronounced. Listen, for example, beginning at 1:54 in the first movement, to the second theme that unfolds like a Mendelssohnian song without words. The Leipzig composer is also conjured up in Godard’s Tempo di Menuetto, which is actually a moderately paced scherzo. But these good-natured elves sound more like oafs, hiccupping and clumsily tripping over each other as if they’ve had a bit too much to drink. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eI might question the Parnassus Trio’s violinist, Yamel Yu, and cellist, Michael Gross, for overdoing it a bit on the portamentos in the Andante quasi Adagio and elsewhere. The potted plant is leafy enough; fertilizer is not needed. As note author Martin Bernklau observes, “The way Godard’s lyrical talent sometimes borders on sentimentality in the slow movements probably engendered a favorable response in the salons.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThe concluding Allegro vivace provides further evidence of French influences in Godard’s music that tend to dilute the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eprima facie\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e Mendelssohn\/Schumann argument, for here we have a clear example of the cyclic techniques favored by Berlioz, Franck, Saint-Saëns, and Liszt. The trio’s last movement begins with the same material that began the first movement. Godard then transforms it harmonically and rhythmically in true cyclic fashion. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAs salon pieces go, the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eBerceuse \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003efrom \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eJocelyn\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, in Bernklau’s words, “is certainly not kitsch despite its popularity. It is a little gem whose tender melodic beauty has survived more than a century.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eMost record labels are proud to trumpet first-ever recordings. That MDG doesn’t do so in this case suggests to me that previous recordings of Godard’s piano trios may have once existed. Currently, however, I find no other listings. As hinted at above, I wasn’t particularly thrilled by the Parnassus Trio’s somewhat raffish readings; I could imagine this music being played more tastefully and with greater refinement by a French ensemble that better understood the musical aesthetic of Godard’s time and place. But we’re not likely to get another recording of these works anytime soon, and technically, the Parnassus Trio is an exceptionally fine ensemble whose many excellent performances on MDG—trios by Lalo, Philipp Scharwenka, and Rheinberger—I’ve been enjoying for a number of years. Recording, as always with this label, is outstanding. In the absence of perhaps more idiomatic readings, this is definitely recommended, especially to those who enjoy exploring the nooks and crannies of 19th-century chamber music. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Jerry Dubins \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Although Benjamin Godard's prolific output is represented today primarily by the Berceuse from his opera Jocelyn, his two piano trios are anything but salon fluff. Each four-movement work fully taps the medium's textural potential, with plenty of melodic interest, well-sustained development, and witty touches, such as the deft alterations from triple to duple time in the G minor Trio Minuetto and the hushed exchanges between the piano's broken chords and the pizzicato strings in the F major Trio's Allegro vivace finale (letter L in my copy of the Durand score).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Trio Parnassus pretty much matches the high standards it set in its excellent Schumann recordings for MDG. The musicians are especially responsive to the Adagio movements' long, unfolding narratives, and generally take Godard's explicit dynamic directives on faith. Ideally I'd prefer faster, more effervescent and sharply characterized finales than what the Trio Parnassus delivers, but the ensemble still makes a strong case for reviving these works. In the absence of an earlier, out-of-print edition on Koch Schwann featuring the Trio Ma Non Troppo, the Trio Parnassus has no current catalog competition here. Recommended.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"MDG","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025338224874,"sku":"760623161525","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1638092_f88b1856-cd64-4e8d-98d1-9de3ae8024f8.jpg?v=1778339003"},{"product_id":"english-song-series-22-britten-songs-proverbs-124745","title":"English Song Series 22 - Britten: Songs \u0026 Proverbs Of William Blake","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/features\/misc\/edchoice2012_79.jpg\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"This music has the power to connect the avant-garde with the lost paradise of tonality,’ said Robin Holloway once about Britten. He might have been talking about this Blake set, a standout in Britten’s still often underrated output of the 1960s, written for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau after his contribution to the War Requiem.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Putting this new Roderick Williams recording immediately up against the composer and Fischer-Dieskau is like going from hymns ancient to hymns modern. Williams finds an ideal emotional stance—involved, totally word-conscious but never melodramatic…as a recorded recital, Williams—and Burnside, who is similarly colourful but keeps an interpretative distance from pumping up the text—have created an outstanding achievement, one to set alongside the Gerald Finley\/Julius Drake disc. Their remaining items, including Tit for Tat—Britten’s ‘reissue’ of early 1929-31 Walter de la Mare settings—shine in a similar way. The Potton Hall recording is clean and clear with excellent instrument\/voice balance.\"\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Mike Ashman, Gramophone [6\/2012]\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This disc couples a masterpiece from Britten’s maturity and songs written in his youth. The latter were revived and gathered together as a set in his later years. Britten wrote very little for baritone, but I do think it a pity that rather than seek an interesting work by another composer to complement these two works, it was decided to complete the disc with folk-songs. Beautiful though these arrangements are, many collectors will have quite enough  \u003ci\u003eOliver Cromwell\u003c\/i\u003es and  \u003ci\u003eLittle Sir William\u003c\/i\u003es on the shelves, thank you. They are, however, beautifully sung here. There is a very brisk  \u003ci\u003ePlough Boy\u003c\/i\u003e, and Roderick Williams tones in his voice beautifully for the gentler numbers.  \u003ci\u003eCa’ the yowes\u003c\/i\u003e, a minor masterpiece, is magnificently grand. Overall, the delivery is simple, neither folk-song nor art-song, and refreshingly avoiding the coy or arch in the likes of  \u003ci\u003eThe foggy, foggy dew\u003c\/i\u003e. No, Williams presents them unadorned, and with a beautiful legato line, as a series of lovely tunes with inventive and striking accompaniments. Others, some of whom set them up as quasi-operatic scenes, do inject more life into some of the songs, not always to their advantage. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eTit for Tat\u003c\/i\u003e, a set of five short songs to poems by Walter de la Mare, was first performed in 1969 by John Shirley-Quirk with the composer at the piano. I have in my head the sound of Shirley-Quirk singing these songs, but can’t for the life of me remember where or when it comes from. The songs were written when Britten was in his teens, and he had only recently gathered them together and, with minimal editing, prepared them for publication. They are accomplished works that can, on the whole, be enjoyed without making allowances for the composer’s age. There is not the psychological insight - neither into the poems nor into the mind of the listener - that you find in the mature composer’s vocal music. Nor is the piano part so developed. Listen however to the second song, “Autumn”: everything that was to come is there in embryonic form. It would be easy to exaggerate the claims of these songs, but presented so cleanly and with such understanding as do Williams and his superb pianist, Iain Burnside, they make just the effect the mature composer surely intended. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  Philip Lancaster’s booklet essay casts plenty of light on the programme. Walter de la Mare’s poems are sadly not given, but the folk-song texts do appear, as do the texts of the masterly  \u003ci\u003eSongs and Proverbs of William Blake\u003c\/i\u003e. This work was composed for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and is dedicated to him. The dedication reads “For Dieter: the past and the future. It is a proper, integrated song-cycle, but which is sung without a break. Poems and proverbs alternate, creating a continuous text which was chosen and arranged in order by Peter Pears, no doubt with input from the composer. Words and music combine to create a cycle that maintains a single mood throughout its length, one of melancholy observation. In his book  \u003ci\u003eBritten, Voice and Piano\u003c\/i\u003e, Stephen Johnson recounts how the relationship between Fischer-Dieskau and Britten, though nourished by mutual admiration, was not an easy one. The sessions for their Decca recording of December 1965 were by all accounts particularly fraught, but this is hardly audible in the finished result, which is a performance of extraordinary mastery. Fischer-Dieskau is magnificent, and the composer’s piano playing is miraculous. Listen, for example, in the  \u003ci\u003eppp\u003c\/i\u003e quavers that introduce  \u003ci\u003eA Poison Tree\u003c\/i\u003e, how he manages to conceal the inconvenient fact that a piano works by hammers striking on keys. This is the kind of piano playing that prompted Gerald Moore, in his book  \u003ci\u003eAm I Too Loud?\u003c\/i\u003e, to proclaim Britten as “the world’s greatest living accompanist”. Britten’s recorded legacy is essential for any admirer of his work, but happily the era is now long gone when attempts by other performers to stamp their own personality on the music seemed like an affront to the composer’s memory. Iain Burnside is outstandingly fine on this disc. It seems almost insulting to state that his playing is technically impeccable, but I do state it, whilst adding that he is profoundly in tune with the music and with the singer’s needs. Roderick Williams gives a performance of great vision, beautifully sung, that will satisfy any listener who discovers the work from this performance. In general, Fischer-Dieskau employs a wider range of vocal colour that allows him, in  \u003ci\u003eThe ChimneySweeper\u003c\/i\u003e, for example, to play the part of the oppressed child with remarkable vividness. Another example would be at the line “And blights with plagues the marriage hearse” in  \u003ci\u003eLondon\u003c\/i\u003e, where Williams doesn’t really match Fischer-Dieskau’s disillusioned bitterness. Williams is slower, too, the song hardly reflecting the composer’s marking of “Very agitated”. If this gives the impression that the reading is a pale one, the opposite is the case. There is a suggestion of whimsy in Fischer-Dieskau’s performance of  \u003ci\u003eThe Fly\u003c\/i\u003e that is absent in Williams’ reading, and Williams launches  \u003ci\u003eAh! Sun-flower\u003c\/i\u003e with a superb crescendo barely observed by Fischer-Dieskau. The end of the work, too, is very fine indeed from both artists, not quite resigned, not quite hopeless. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  -- William Hedley , MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025342714090,"sku":"747313260072","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1987221.jpg?v=1778332658"},{"product_id":"bilse-waltzes-marches-polkas-simonis-cologne-west-70285","title":"Bilse: Waltzes, Marches, Polkas \/ Simonis, Cologne West German Radio SO","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eBILSE \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eSturmmarsch Galopp. Baumgartenallee Polka. Marienwalzer. Nur mit Dir. Schlesische Lieder. Catharina Quadrille. Die Fürstensteiner. Mit Bomben und Granaten. Winterflocken Galopp. Victoria Walzer. Königspolonaise. Die Provinzialen. Concerthaus Polka. Schützenmarsch \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e•\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Christian Simonis, cond; Cologne West German RSO \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e•\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e cpo 777 341 (72:10) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eYou’ve got to hand it to cpo. I don’t know where they come up with these obscure Romantic composers, but here’s another one. The long-lived, Silesian-born Benjamin Bilse (1816–1902) was known in his time interchangeably as the “Hungarian Strauss,” the “Bohemian Strauss,” and the “Danish Strauss.” A native of Liegnitz, Bilse became steeped in the folk music of Poland and Silesia, founding the Bilse Orchestra in 1842. As was not uncommon for small-town musicians of the time, Bilse was proficient on many instruments and pretty much taught himself composition by studying and conducting the works of contemporaries and peers. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eIf the foregoing paints Bilse as a provincial, backcountry bandleader, the impression is a false one. By the 1860s, we find him in Berlin, a highly popular composer and presenter of public concerts, an important impresario of musical events, and a hardworking organizer of music societies and organizations. He is even credited with having played a significant role in the establishment of the Berlin Philharmonic. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAs a composer, Bilse’s ambitions seemed to be more modest. Like the Danish waltz king, Christian Lumbye, the Austrian Joseph Lanner, the French Waldteufel, and the Austrian Strauss clan, Bilse contented himself with writing waltzes, polkas, and marches for the entertainment of mass audiences. And while such works may have been aimed at satisfying popular tastes, they were superbly crafted—some of them miniature masterpieces—and the ensembles assembled to perform them were of the highest professional caliber. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThis is feel-good music. If you love a good John Philip Sousa march, you will joyously feather-dust your furniture to Bilse’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMit Bomben und Granaten \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e(“With Bombs and Grenades”) and Swiffer your floors to the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSturmmarsch Galopp\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e. My sense is that unlike the waltzes of Johann Strauss II, Bilse’s waltz and polka numbers, such as the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eVictoria Walzer\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e and the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eConcert House Polka\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, were less intended to be actually danced to than they were intended to be listened to as stylized, self-sustaining concert pieces. Of their type, these are masterfully written works, highly polished, handsomely scored with an ear for instrumental color, and tremendously engaging. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eBased on the milieu of composers to which Bilse belonged and the musical genre to which he contributed, you will know whether this sort of thing appeals to you or not. If so, I can tell you that the performances and the recording are top drawer, and I, personally, haven’t had so much plain old fun listening to a CD in quite some time. Strongly recommended. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Jerry Dubins \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"CPO","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025357590762,"sku":"761203734122","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1426411.jpg?v=1778329060"},{"product_id":"britten-gloriana","title":"Britten: Gloriana","description":"Part of Royal Opera's Britten centenary celebrations � 'Susan Bullock is an awe-inspiring Gloriana... Toby Spence, as Essex, has regained all his pristine vocal lustre' The Independent � 'Director Richard Jones... staging... is both moving and surprising... ' The Daily Telegraph � Extra features: Inside Rehearsals, Gloriana Behind the Scenes, cast gallery.","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46025390588138,"sku":"809478071341","price":42.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2036703-2736253.jpg?v=1778387863"},{"product_id":"britten-peter-grimes","title":"Britten: Peter Grimes","description":"Melly Still's production for Glyndebourne finds the \"delicate balance between whimsy and mysticism\" (Daily Telegraph) at the heart of the opera, which Vladimir Jurowski conducts \"with lustrous style: you can hear the birds in the score, feel the sunshine and thrill to the starlit night sky in the final scene\" (Opera Today).","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46025390620906,"sku":"809478011033","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2225564_712f15e0-0858-4fa3-9980-37cda407bdd6.jpg?v=1778305337"},{"product_id":"britten-death-in-venice-gardner-graham-hall-169704","title":"Britten: Death In Venice  \/ Gardner, Graham-hall, Shore, Mead, Zaldivar","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eBRITTEN \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eDeath in Venice \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Edward Gardner, cond; John Graham-Hall \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e(Aschenbach);\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Andrew Shore \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e(Traveler, Elderly Fop, Old Gondolier, Hotel Manager, Hotel Barber, Leader of Players, Voice of Dionysus);\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Tim Mead \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e(Voice of Apollo);\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e English Natl Op O \u0026amp; Ch \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e OPUS ARTE 1130 (DVD: 153:00) Live: London 6\/18, 21, 24\/2013 \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBenjamin Britten’s last opera, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, has never really caught on, except perhaps in England itself. It has appeared twice at the New York Met, but the last appearance was some 20 years ago. I don’t believe it ever sold out the house. Based on a rather pretentious novella by Thomas Mann, the story seemingly does not adapt well to the operatic stage. The main conflict is an internal one for the aged main character, Gustav von Aschenbach, between powerful homoerotic lust for a young boy and the desperate desire to maintain his dignity and moral rectitude. Scene changes are so numerous the opera requires 17 short tableaus, a stage director’s nightmare. Britten’s score is also rather quirky and austere as befits the story, and lacks much melody. There are really only three singing roles, although the chorus is quite busy in several of the tableaus. Most of the heavy lifting (or singing) is done by the old man and a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003edeus ex machina\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e who appears in several roles and seems to be propelling Aschenbach relentlessly to his fate (the title perhaps might reveal a clue as to that). Still in all, it is quite an engrossing drama to see once, and this English National Opera (ENO) production provides quite a good representation of it. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAccolades should go to stage director Deborah Warner, set designer Tom Pye, and costume designer Chloe Obolensky for the rapid, efficient scene changes and the eye-catching look of the staging. Most of the action occurs in and around Venice: on the beach, in the hotel, and in the city itself. The evocative perception of these settings is conveyed cleverly yet opulently with only the judicious use of a few props and curtains. Aschenbach’s erotic interest, the young boy Tadzio, and his chums on the beach are portrayed by dancers, so that Britten has ample opportunity to employ the orchestra without bothering the singers. Aschenbach surreptitiously follows the boy’s Polish family around: the mother with her parasol, two daughters, the boy, and a governess, all mute roles. They reminded me of a family of ducks parading constantly back and forth across the stage. If one’s attention sometimes flags, it is due more to the story itself than ENO’s creative staging. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNone of the singers is vocally challenged by Britten’s score, though perhaps taxed for stamina, so consummate actors are the order of the day. The difficult role of Aschenbach, with all his internal struggles, is rendered powerfully here by John Graham-Hall. If Graham-Hall is not always completely successful in communicating the heat of his obsessive passion for the boy (they never talk) or his internal agonizing, it is at least partly due to what he is given to sing. Although Britten always claimed his declamation was based on natural inflections of speech, much of it doesn’t sound very natural, at least to these non-Brit ears. The multiple roles of the rather enigmatic propeller of Aschenbach’s fate are a bit reminiscent of the multiple, but singularly sung, villains in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eTales of Hoffman\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. The role(s) is taken here by baritone Andrew Shore. Shore sings well and seems just creepy enough to give the story the proper feel of existential angst and ambiguity it requires. The third major singing role is that of the Voice of Apollo, the personification of Aschenbach’s rational and moral side, opposed to Shore’s Dionysus of licentious appetite. Sung here quite well by countertenor Tim Mead in one of the opera’s few arioso passages, the rather trite and overused convention of arguing inner voices at least retains some interest. As with many modern operas, Britten gives the orchestra a major role, and the ENO forces under Edward Gardner respond admirably (as do the choristers). Special mention also needs to be made of young dancer Sam Zaldivar, who portrays the boy Tadzio seductively, but with an athletic grace of movement. I watched with English subtitles, but they certainly weren’t necessary, diction is very clear and Britten never overpowers the singing with dense orchestration. Subtitles are also available in French, German, and Korean. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor a rather obscure opera, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e seems to have been served well on video. First came a 1981 Tony Palmer film that was supposed to give Britten’s life companion, tenor Peter Pears, his chance to record the role. In the event, Pears was invalided by a stroke and was replaced, apparently most admirably, by Robert Gard. Baritone John Shirley-Quirk is also mentioned as being very fine in the role of the Traveler, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eet al.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e There is also a 1990 Glyndebourne production, and a 2008 production from La Fenice in Venice itself, both of which received good reviews and both still available. I must confess I have seen none of these competitors. The La Fenice set is available in high definition Blu-ray, just as this Opus Arte disc. I may only have the inclination or opportunity to see \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e once, and this handsome and well-performed ENO production certainly proves a fine way to do so. Recommended. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Bill White\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    \u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46025391571178,"sku":"809478011309","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2524847.jpg?v=1778308877"},{"product_id":"britten-death-in-venice-perez-daszak-teatro-56129","title":"Britten: Death in Venice \/ Perez, Daszak, Teatro Real [Blu-ray]","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=2274301\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAdapted from Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella, Death in Venice was Benjamin Britten’s last opera, the composer insisting on its completion while delaying badly needed heart surgery. The starkly simple narrative of a famous but failing novelist travelling to Venice to seek inspiration only to find unhealthy infatuation and deadly cholera, is given a chamber-like precision and clarity through Britten’s score, becoming a haunting drama filled with musical symbols, disquieting mystery and richly evocative atmospheres of Venice and its strange characters. Willy Decker’s Teatro Real production was described as ‘one of his most brilliant stage works… a remarkable technical feat.’","brand":"Naxos AudioVisual","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46025393570026,"sku":"730099007665","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3825185.jpg?v=1778767550"},{"product_id":"britten-death-in-venice-gardner-graham-hall-207522","title":"Britten: Death In Venice  \/ Gardner, Graham-hall, Shore, Mead, Zaldivar [blu-ray]","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=1165486\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Benjamin Britten\u003cbr\u003e  DEATH IN VENICE \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Gustav von Aschenbach - John Graham Hall\u003cbr\u003e  Traveller \/ Elderly Fop \/ Gondolier \/ Barber \/ Hotel Manger \/ Player \/ Dionysus - Andrew Shore\u003cbr\u003e  Apollo - Tim Mead\u003cbr\u003e  Tadzio - Sam Zaldivar\u003cbr\u003e  The Polish Mother - Laura Caldow\u003cbr\u003e  Two Daughters - Mia Angelina Mather \/ Xhuliana Shehu\u003cbr\u003e  The Governess - Joyce Henderson\u003cbr\u003e  Jaschiu - Marcio Teixeira\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e  Edward Gardner, conductor\u003cbr\u003e  Deborah Warner, stage director\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Recorded live at the London Coliseum, June 2013 \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Picture format:1080i High Definition\u003cbr\u003e  Sound format: LPCM 2.0 \/ DTS 5.1\u003cbr\u003e  Region code: 0 (worldwide)\u003cbr\u003e  Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean\u003cbr\u003e  Running time: 153 mins\u003cbr\u003e  No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":46025568780522,"sku":"809478071419","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2523687.jpg?v=1780169127"},{"product_id":"britten-billy-budd-elder-ainsley-ens-paterson-71089","title":"Britten: Billy Budd \/ Elder, Ainsley, Ens, Paterson, Imbrailo","description":"\u003cb\u003eAlso available on Blu-ray\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Glyndebourne has a proud association with the operas of Benjamin Britten, however until 2010 had never staged Billy Budd. The all-male opera with a libretto co-written by EM Forster, is based on the battle between pure good and blind evil, and is set on a British man-‘o-war ship. Michael Grandage, Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, chose this work to make his long-awaited operatic debut. Sir Mark Elder returned to conduct the production, marking the 100th opera production in his illustrious career.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Benjamin Britten\u003cbr\u003e  BILLY BUDD\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Captain Vere – John Mark Ainsley\u003cbr\u003e  Billy Budd – Jacques Imbrailo\u003cbr\u003e  Claggart – Phillip Ens\u003cbr\u003e  Mr. Redburn – Iain Paterson\u003cbr\u003e  Mr. Flint – Matthew Rose\u003cbr\u003e  Lieutenant Ratcliffe – Darren Jeffery\u003cbr\u003e  Red Whiskers – Alasdair Elliott\u003cbr\u003e  Donald – John Moore\u003cbr\u003e  Dansker – Jeremy White\u003cbr\u003e  Novice – Ben Johnson\u003cbr\u003e  Squeak – Colin Judson\u003cbr\u003e  Bosun – Richard Mosley-Evans\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  The Glyndebourne Chorus\u003cbr\u003e  London Philharmonic Orchestra\u003cbr\u003e  Mark Elder, conductor\u003cbr\u003e  Michael Grandage, stage director\u003cbr\u003e  Bonus:\u003cbr\u003e  - Introducing Billy Budd\u003cbr\u003e  - Designs on Billy Budd\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Picture format: NTSC 16:9 Anamorphic\u003cbr\u003e  Sound format: LPCM Stereo 2.0 \/ DTS 5.1\u003cbr\u003e  Region code: 0 (worldwide)\u003cbr\u003e  Menu language: English\u003cbr\u003e  Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish\u003cbr\u003e  Running time: 200 mins\u003cbr\u003e  No. of DVDs: 1\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Opus Arte","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46025613836522,"sku":"809478010517","price":39.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1855808_21532bb5-dbb0-4f97-896b-1b673f42147c.jpg?v=1778319532"},{"product_id":"american-classics-lees-string-quartets-no-1-121288","title":"American Classics - Lees: String Quartets No 1, 5 \u0026 6 \/ Cypress String Quartet","description":"I sat down to type up this review late on the evening of Tuesday                   1 June 2010. Halfway through doing so, wanting to check a date,                   I went to the \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.benjaminlees.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ewebsite\u003c\/a\u003e                   devoted to Benjamin Lees, where I was faced with the following                   announcement: “IT IS WITH PROFOUND SADNESS THAT THE FAMILY                   ANNOUNCES THE PASSING OF COMPOSER BENJAMIN LEES ON MAY 31, 2010”.                   This review - written on the day after the composer’s death                   - necessarily becomes more of a memorial than I intended it to                   be when I sat down to put it together. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  Lees was born in China, brought up and educated in California.                   From 1949 to 1954 he studied with George Antheil who acted as                   a largely unpaid tutor out of respect for Lees’ abilities.                   From the mid-1950s onwards his works began to be performed quite                   widely and by distinguished performers, without his ever perhaps                   becoming a ‘major’ figure in American music. A Guggenheim                   fellowship enabled him to spend much of his time in Europe in                   the second half of the 1950s. Never a composer who aspired to                   be thought of as especially ‘American’, these European                   years were important for Lees, years when he could evolve his                   own voice without direct involvement in the style wars of American                   music. Prokofiev, Bartók and Shostakovich became important                   exemplars for Lees. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                    In a \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bruceduffie.com\/lees.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e1987                   interview\u003c\/a\u003e with Bruce Duffie, when the interviewer enquired                   “in a great number of your own works, you have used the                   traditional approach - Slonimsky calls it accessibility - which                   makes your music attractive to conductors and soloists.                    Is this something you have consciously built in to your pieces,                   or is this an outgrowth of what you wanted to write innately?”,                   Lees answered as follows: “The accessibility, I suppose,                   comes from something that George Antheil told me when I was studying                   with him.  He put it very succinctly, and it was one of those                   catch words which stuck in the memory.  He said, “Music                   must have a face.  A theme must have a face, something which                   is really recognizable, both to you and to the listener.”                    And again, it matters not what style a person writes in, but it                   cannot simply be amorphous.  It cannot be really formless                   and it cannot be merely notes spinning”. Certainly Lees’                   music never seeks to exclude listeners, or to make their life                   needlessly difficult by the flaunting of the composer’s                   ‘cleverness’. Nor, on the other hand, does he write                   down, or write to please some lowest common denominator of taste                   and demand. Like any substantial composer, Lees seems always to                   have been true to himself, to have been serenely unworried, so                   far as one can judge, by matters of mere fashion or popularity.                   Honesty, indeed, has always struck me as one of the hallmarks                   of his work, a directness of communication. It seems appropriate                   that he should once have said that “there are two kinds                   of composers. One is the intellectual and the other is visceral.                   I fall into the latter category. If my stomach doesn’t tighten                   at an idea, then it’s not the right idea.” \u003cbr\u003e                      \u003cbr\u003e                  Most attention - and perhaps rightly so - has been paid to Lees’                   orchestral works, not least his five symphonies. But, as this                   disc demonstrates well and clearly, he also had plenty to say                   in that other ‘classical’ form - the string quartet,                   of which he wrote six. This rewarding Naxos disc contains three                   of them in fine performances by the Cypress Quartet, for whom                   the fifth and the sixth were written. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  The Cypress Quartet begin their programme with Lees’ first                   quartet, written in 1952, and premiered the following year in                   Los Angles - and in 1954 played in New York by the Budapest Quartet.                   In three movements (moderato-adagietto-allegro vivo) it has an                   appealing grace, at its most obvious in the adagietto, a lovely                   moment that exudes a simplicity - created by considerable art                   - and only slightly troubled lyricism that has a more or less                   pastoral quality. In the movement that precedes it some crisp                   and dynamic writing alternates with more reflective passages.                   In the last movement - essentially a rondo - the writing is engagingly                   animated, seeming to speak out of a mind full of ideas and eagerness.                   A quartet well worth hearing - especially when so well performed                   - but not yet fully embodying the composer’s mature voice.                   \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  The two ‘late’ quartets give us that voice in abundance.                   The four movements of the fifth quartet (measured - arioso - quick,                   quiet - explosive) form a musical argument of considerable density,                   marked both by striking moments and a sense of larger design.                   The writing for cello at the opening of the first movement, and                   the ensuing dialogue with the other instruments is one of those                   striking moments. Another comes in the second movement when an                   aggressive intervention by the cello disrupts the meditative conversation                   of the two violins. The more one listens, the more such moments                   one discovers. The third movement is a miniature delight (it lasts                   less than two minutes), music of evanescent beauty. The contrast                   with the fourth movement could hardly be more marked - full as                   it is of musical contention and turbulence, of assertion and annoyed                   counter-assertion, a conflict not so much resolved as serving                   to fuel a still angry ending. \u003cbr\u003e                      \u003cbr\u003e                  Where the sixth quartet is concerned the composer’s markings                   for its four movements say most of what the mere reviewer might                   want to say about the work: “measured, dolorous - calm,                   steady - quiet, eerie - unhurried”. And they are! The use                   pizzicato passages is a particular feature of this quartet - notably                   at moments in the first and third movements. Without any wilful                   oddity or eccentricity, Lees creates some fresh and interesting                   effects at more than one point in this quartet. To say that one                   can ‘hear’ his respect for Bartók and Shostakovich                   is not, repeat not, to belittle his work as derivative. It is                   merely to recognise that, like 99% (or more!) of all artists,                   Lees was not a toweringly inventive figure. He was a highly accomplished                   craftsman who had listened to, and learned from, the music of                   the past and the present; a composer who refused to be merely                   modish or to chase the fashionable at the cost of fidelity to                   what he \u003ci\u003efelt\u003c\/i\u003e to be right for him. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  It is, I hope, timely to celebrate Lees’ achievement, immediately                   after his death. Not a composer of spectacular fame, he worked                   with a seriousness and truth that some more famous fall short                   of. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                   -- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025985818858,"sku":"636943962824","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1539223.jpg?v=1778323837"},{"product_id":"godard-violin-concerto-no-2-etc-hanslip-126191","title":"Godard: Violin Concerto No 2, Etc \/ Hanslip, Trevor, Et Al","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/features\/editors_choice.gif\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cb\u003ePraise for Chloë Hanslip's confident excursion into unfamiliar territory\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Gramophone [4\/2008]\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Benjamin Louis Paul Godard, the son of a businessman, was born in Paris on 18th August, 1849. A child prodigy on the violin, Godard studied with Richard Hammer and later Henri Vieuxtemps. At the age of fourteen (some sources say when he was ten) Godard was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire and studied composition under Henri Reber. His first published work was a violin sonata written when he was sixteen. In the mid-1860s he twice competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome. From this time forward Godard dedicated himself to composition, first writing chamber music (he played viola in several chamber music societies), and numerous piano pieces. He was especially inspired by the music of Robert Schumann, and orchestrated Schumann’s Kinderscenen in 1876. In 1878 his Le Tasse was a joint winner of the prize for musical composition given by the city of Paris. Le Tasse is a three-part dramatic symphony with soli and chorus based on a poem of Charles Grandmougins, which was in turn based on The Damnation of Faust. In succeeding years Godard composed an enormous amount of music, including three programme symphonies (Symphonie Gothique, Symphonie Orientale, and Symphonie Légendaire), three string quartets, four violin sonatas, a cello sonata, two piano trios, numerous piano pieces, violin and piano concertos, various orchestral works, and over a hundred songs. Godard is chiefly remembered for his operas. His first opera, Les bijoux de Jeanette, was produced in 1878; Pedro de Zalamea followed in 1884. His next opera, Jocelyn, based on a poem of Lamartine, appeared in 1888. Its fame rests mainly on the well-known Berceuse, which has been arranged for numerous combinations of instruments and\/or voices and remains Godard’s most familiar work. It has been performed by Jussi Björling, John McCormack (in English translation as “Angels Guard Thee” and with the violin accompaniment of Fritz Kreisler), Alma Gluck, Pablo Casals, the Eroica Trio, and many others. Godard’s operatic output also included Dante et Béatrice (1890), Jeanne d’Arc (1891), and La Vivandière (1895; unfinished at his death and completed by Paul Vidal). The conductor Jules Étienne Pasdeloup admired Godard’s music and allowed Godard to conduct many of his own premières. After Pasdeloup’s retirement, Godard created theConcerts Modernes in an attempt to continue Pasdeloup’s Concerts Populaires , but this lasted only one season (October 1885 – April 1886). In 1887 he was appointed a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1889 was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. Godard died of tuberculosis at Cannes on 10th January, 1895.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Godard’s was unquestionably a romantic temperament, though more closely aligned with the romanticism of the mid-nineteenth century than with Wagner and Tchaikovsky; his talent has been compared with the facility and manner of Saint-Saëns. His respect and admiration for Robert Schumann has already been noted, as has his tutelage under Henri Vieuxtemps, one of the great romantic violinist-composers of the nineteenth century. Godard’s music has sometimes been criticized for superficiality and “over-hastiness”, and truly he composed at a prodigious pace, reaching Opus 100 in 1886 while still in his thirties. In romantic fashion his symphonies are “named”, and his operas contain the soaring melody and romantic sensibility expected of romantic opera, though his stage works quickly fell out of favour. Among his operas, the unfinished opéra comique La Vivandière had the greatest success. Godard’s music follows the traditions of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he had little sympathy for the overblown rhetoric of Wagner, especially since, being of Jewish extraction, he disliked Wagner’s anti- Semitism. Like the early romantics Godard excelled in small forms. The nineteenth-century scholar Hervey wrote that “Godard is perhaps greater in small things than he is in large. There is an exquisite charm in some of his songs … whilst many of his piano pieces have a savour all their own.” A new appreciation for Godard’s achievement in small pieces, once dismissed as salon music, has grown in recent years. Godard’s achievement is best summed up as “traditional romantic”.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e While focusing much of his compositional career on other forms and instruments such as opera, songs, and piano pieces, Godard did not neglect the instrument on which he had excelled as a youth. His violin concertos are among his very best works and display both inventiveness and élan. The Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 131, is in the traditional three movements. The opening Allegro moderato features alternating chords by soloist and orchestra from the first measure; this gesture is fleshed out with scale runs by the soloist and snatches of a motif consisting of a half note and triplets. The main lyric theme enters after a ritardando; this is worked to a climax and repeated forte. After a brief orchestral statement, the soloist launches into a cadenza featuring double, triple, and quadruple stops as well as a glissando run. The thematic materials are reworked and the movement ends with the usual flourish. The following Adagio quasi andante features a steady triplet orchestral accompaniment underneath the main lyric melody, at first alluded to by solo horn, and then taken up fully by solo violinist. The contrasting midsection, in 6\/8 time rather than the 4\/4 of the movement’s beginning, contains double-stopping and short runs, then slowly returns to the 4\/4 main lyric material and the steady triplet accompaniment, which accompaniment is finally discarded in the coda. The final Allegro non troppo is a bouncy movement in 2\/4 time, a delightful rondo romp from beginning to end.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Concerto Romantique, Op. 35, is a much earlier work and in some ways more experimental. Hervey wrote that in the Concerto Romantique Godard’s talent found “its true expression. The composer of these works is in the full force of his powers, and it is not too much to state the belief that he has yet much to say”. Unfortunately Hervey’s book was published in 1894, just months before Godard’s untimely death. The first unorthodox feature of this concerto is that it has four movements instead of the usual three. The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, while of a more dramatic character than the other movements, is relatively brief for an opening movement, which tend to be the “heaviest” and longest movement. After a sixteen-measure orchestral introduction, the soloist enters fortissimo with a highly accented martial theme in double stops. After an orchestral interlude, the violin sings a lyric theme; these materials eventually lead to a section marked Recitativo, which is in the nature of an accompanied cadenza. A coda brings the movement to a close. The graceful Adagio non troppo is connected to the following Canzonetta, marked Allegro moderato, by a short improvisatory section. This is Godard’s most famous concerto movement, and until the mid-twentieth-century was often published by itself or in collections in violin and piano arrangement. It is a delicate and highly accented song, only briefly discarding its gossamer character for more sustained lyricism. The final Allegro molto opens with a dramatic statement in the orchestra; the soloist enters with a theme marked Agitato ed appassionato molto. This theme is interspersed with passage-work, some of scherzo-like character. The soloist’s final peroration features double-stops and the movement ends with appropriate high spirits.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The atmospheric Scènes Poétiques for Orchestra, Op. 46, contains four short bucolic pieces depicting various outdoor scenes: Dans les bois (In the woods), Dans les champs (In the fields), Sur la montagne (On the mountain), and the bustling Au village (In the village).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Bruce R. Schueneman\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026183999722,"sku":"747313055470","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1312825_6c1c1529-018c-494d-a837-a377f491440a.jpg?v=1778329219"},{"product_id":"ceremony-of-carols-2","title":"Ceremony of Carols","description":"Classical Music","brand":"CRD Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026186260714,"sku":"708093351428","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1562314.jpg?v=1778335243"},{"product_id":"early-string-quartets-1","title":"EARLY STRING QUARTETS","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Cobra","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026193469674,"sku":"8713897900095","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1567978.jpg?v=1778324066"},{"product_id":"britten-a-ceremony-of-carols-the-sixteen-196986","title":"Britten: A Ceremony of Carols \/ The Sixteen","description":"\u003cp\u003eBritten's 'A Ceremony of Carols' is a masterpiece composed on board ship as Britten returned to England from the U.S.A. in 1948, a touching evocation of boyhood lost but never forgotten. 'A Boy was Born' is a work that first made Britten famous, based on a theme and variations of astonishing ingenuity. The 'Missa Brevis', written for the boys of Westminster Cathedral, is a gem that is some ways looks forward to the 'War Requiem' which came two years later.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Coro","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026396729578,"sku":"828021603426","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/821666.jpg?v=1778191504"}],"url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/collections\/george-benjamin.oembed?page=2","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}