Little Wanderer
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Winter Words
Folk Song Arrangements
Imogen Holst (1907-1984)
Four Songs
Daniel Kidane (b. 1986)
Songs of Illumination
Nick Pritchard (tenor), Ian Tindale (piano)
rec. January 2025, SJE Arts, Oxford, England
Signum SIGCD952 [62]
The song recital that Nick Pritchard and Ian Tindale gave at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival was the finest I had heard in several years. I do not think I have heard a finer since, so I jumped at the chance to hear this disc, which features some of the same repertoire, and it does not disappoint.
They begin with Winter Words, Britten’s masterful setting of Thomas Hardy, which also featured in that Edinburgh recital. It is the expressivity of Pritchard’s voice that is so immediately impressive. No tenor who sings Britten can escape comparisons with Peter Pears. Pritchard has all of Pears’s engagement with the words but a far more beautiful voice with which to paint word pictures. With Tindale to match him, they are a formidable pairing. The opening of At day-close in November demonstrates that perfectly. Tindale’s pointillist piano line seems to plough a furrow that is totally detached from Pritchard’s tenor line, yet they meet to create something distinctive and wonderful.
That song has a subtle hint of horror to it, as does the depiction of the journeying boy in Midnight on the Great Western. It trundles into the darkness (via a fantastically evocative piano line) carrying the boy who is partly an object of pity and partly of fear. Tindale picks out the Psalm tune with enormous delicacy in The Choirmaster’s Burial, while Pritchard tells the story in several different voices, and lends it compelling dramatic and musical integrity. He pulls a similar trick in At the Railway Station, Upway but Before Life and After brings more thoughtful contemplation from both piano and voice as they consider thoughtfully, almost prayerfully, Hardy’s consideration of passing time.
In short, this enormously impressive performance bears comparison with other recorded greats. Aside from Britten and Pears, or course, the natural comparison to make in Winter Words is with Pappano and Bostridge, whose hugely impressive recording for the Britten centenary is probably still the finest out there. Having heard them perform it only a few months ago at the Edinburgh International Festival, however, I have come to find Bostridge’s perpetually pained quality a little wearing. Pritchard’s voice is more beautiful and more varied, which means that in this repertoire he now gives Bostridge a serious run for his money.
The Britten folk song arrangements that end the set are every bit as good. Pritchard’s voice is pure sunshine in Sally in our Alley and The Ploughboy, then delicately wistful in The Last Rose of Summer. He sings gently in How Sweet the Answer, alongside Tindale’s delicate piano line, yet that same piano brings welcome expansiveness to Ca’ the Yowes, and they both bring welcome mischief to Oliver Cromwell.
Imogen Holst is a solid choice of coupling, considering her link with Britten. Brittle Beauty is suitably throwaway, while Why fearest thou thy outward foe? asks questions without providing answers. Shall I thus ever long? is breathless in its speed and intensity until the final call for death that slows up with drama in both the voice and chiming piano. As lawrell leaves seems to go much deeper emotionally, with tolling piano chords and a gentle beauty in the voice that pledges love in a complex way, qualities that it shares with Little think’st thou. The set ends with a beautifully playful performance of Weathers, one that puts you in mind of Vaughan Williams in its embrace of the pastoral elements of English life.
Daniel Kidane’s three Blake settings focus on the vulnerable, and tell the stories from their point of view. The musical colours are delicately drawn and subtly deployed to great effect. The song of the glow worm in A Dream is strangely moving, and the poignancy of the loss in The Land of Dreams is achieved with heart-tugging skill. The piano twinkles at the top of the keyboard as if to suggest the contrast of black and white in The Little Black Boy, but gets drawn downwards as though to show the way the darkness of real life intrudes.
The recording in the Oxford Arts Centre is close and intimate, perfect for the sort of song recital that seems to be confiding in the listener. These two artists look set to be a major pairing in the world of English song. Let us hope this disc betokens more good things to come.
Simon Thompson
Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
