Brindley Sherratt (bass)
Fear No More
Julius Drake (piano)
rec. 2022, Henry Wood Hall, London, UK
Texts and English translations provided
Delphian DCD34313 [58]

Brindley Sherratt was a wonderful Master-at-Arms in Deborah Warner’s 2017 production of Britten’s Billy Budd. He was sinister rather than overtly evil, menacing rather than violent, the restraint only adding to the effect. Vocally, he was superb, and his carriage and body language brilliantly conveyed character. And he wore glasses, a feature that, curiously, conveyed an additional layer of menace. He is wearing his glasses on the booklet cover here, but seen now in pensive, rather kindly, mood.

Sherratt gave his first song recital only in 2022, and this is his first recital disc. He favours songs written with the bass voice specifically in mind, what he defines as a ‘dark voice’, but one in which the ‘colour’ is an important component. It would seem that, in his late fifties, he took some persuading to step onto the recital stage. No less courageous, in my view, was his decision to begin this collection with a group of Schubert lieder. There are some less familiar songs, but also included is one of the best known and most difficult, Der Tod und das Mädchen, a miraculous piece of psychological insight on the part of the 20 year-old composer. There are only two verses. In the first the Maiden pleads with Death to turn away, she is who so young, and leave her unharmed. Death replies tenderly: she need not fear, for he is a friend; she will sleep in his arms. The singer must play both roles, and comparing how different singers achieve this is a fascinating exercise. As the Maiden, the great Janet Baker (EMI, 1980) with Geoffrey Parsons breaks your heart, so vivid is the child’s fragility, nervous apprehension and fear. Baker then drains the colour from her voice to personify Death, yet as the verse progresses she allows some warmth to penetrate. Brigitte Fassbaender’s Maiden (Hyperion, 1990) is just as fearful, but Baker’s youthful vulnerability is less in evidence. Fassbaender’s Death is a sterner presence, and unlike Baker she takes the low-note option at the end. Graham Johnson injects meaning into the simple accompaniment in an uncanny and deeply affecting way. It might seem obvious that the Maiden would present more difficulty to a true bass than would Death, but Cornelius Hauptmann, in a fascinating recital entitled Dunkel oder Licht, recorded in 2010 for the Carus label, employs his head voice to represent the Maiden. Some might find this an easy way out; I find it totally convincing. As Death he maintains his quiet singing whilst producing an even, almost monotonous tone that seduces and hypnotises. Brindley Sherratt is more robust, both as the Maiden and playing the role of Death, than any of these. His Maiden is fearful, but combative and confrontational. She succumbs in the end, of course, perhaps because Sherratt, stern and unbending at first, sweetens his tone most affectingly for the moment when Death invites the Maiden to show courage, for he is neither cruel nor fierce.

Sherratt’s performance of Der Tod und das Mädchen is a fine and moving one, quite different in some respects from other singers’ interpretations. In the other Schubert songs some listeners may find a certain evenness of expression, perhaps wishing for more explicit response to specific elements in the texts. They will not, however, be disappointed by the group of English songs that ends the programme. On the contrary, Sea Fever is a fine demonstration of the skill and expressive means that allow Sherratt to inject variety into the different verses. In ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ (from Finzi’s Shakespeare settings, Let Us Garlands Bring, dedicated to Vaughan Williams) we appreciate the ease with which Sherratt climbs to the top of his voice, as well as the imaginative, almost whispered way he deals with the recitative-like passage beginning at ‘No exorciser harm thee!’ Seasoned collectors of English songs will surely compare Sherratt, in these two songs, to Bryn Terfel in his 1995 DG recital, The Vagabond. Comments at the time ranged from ‘near-genius’ to ‘over-interpreted’: I can understand the reasoning behind the second view whilst sitting firmly in the same camp as the first. Sherratt steers a kind of middle path: he really lives these songs but does not feel the need to micro-manage them. His voice is naturally darker than Terfel’s, which brings extra gravity to the Finzi, a quality particularly important in the following Gurney setting. And what a song it is! Where a lesser composer – I can think of at least one example – would have ended with an exultant statement of the closing words ‘it is most grand to die’, Gurney has us think his setting is to close with a long piano postlude. This is a ruse, however, because he then repeats, pianissimo, the words ‘most grand’, a masterly touch. Sherratt is magnificent here, and is just as fine in the following Michael Head song where his simple, sincere story-telling skills come to the fore. In addition, he even manages to inject a touch of gentle melancholy and regret implied in the words if not, necessarily, in the music. Warlock’s rumbustious Captain Stratton’s Fancy may not be the most subtle or refined example of English song, but it does the job, and so does Brindley Sherratt.

The light-hearted Warlock song brings to a close a recital whose central theme is Death. (I seem to be spontaneously maintaining that capital ‘D’.) The character is present, if obliquely, in Strauss’s Im Spätboot. A traveller taking the last boat home notes that ‘a shadow disembarks’ but ‘ no one comes on board’. Strauss’s treatment of the text emphasises the traveller’s fatigue without overdoing the apprehension as to his destination. Sherratt is properly sombre and weary, closing the song with a splendid low D flat. Following this is the programme’s centrepiece, Mussorgsky’s spellbinding Songs and Dances of Death. In each of the four songs it is Death who has the most to say, and who, inevitably, also has the last word. In the first song, ‘Lullaby’, he takes a sick child in his arms, singing gently and ignoring the mother’s anguish. The second, ‘Serenade’, is a kind of love song, with Death entranced by the beauty of the invalid he is welcoming into his world. The third song, ‘Trepak’, tells of a poor peasant, much the worse for drink, who has wandered from his path and found himself lost in snow. Death has little sympathy at first, but then he leads the drunkard into the next life with a kind of tenderness. Such qualities have no place in the final song, ‘Field Marshall’. On the contrary, Death sings triumphantly over the graves of multitudes who have died in battle, graves on which he will dance, sealing them for all eternity. Sherratt seems more at home in the third and fourth songs, where the character is harsh and uncompromising. In the first song, in particular, Death could be more of an enchanter, more beguiling, more insidious, in the style of Schubert’s Erl King. The particular quality of Sherratt’s voice, however, aligned with vocal power and directness of utterance, makes this an awesome performance of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece. Julius Drake is magnificent, making the most of Mussorgsky’s frequently ungrateful piano writing. His treatment of the piano parts throughout this recital is a model of its kind, supporting the singer in every way yet inventive and full of individual character. The balance is slightly in favour of the voice, though, which is a pity. it should not, however, discourage admirers from acquiring this wide-ranging, unusual and deeply satisfying recital.

William Hedley

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Contents
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Fahrt zum Hades, D526
Der Schiffer, D536
L’incanto degli occhi, D902/1
Auf der Donau, D553
Der Tod und das Mädchen, D531
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Im Spätboot, Op. 56/3
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
Songs and Dances of Death
John Ireland (1879-1962)
Sea Fever
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)
By a Bierside
Michael Head (1900-1976)
Limehouse Reach
Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
Captain Stratton’s Fancy