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United Kingdom Oxford Lieder Festival 2022 [7] – Gurney, Rebecca Clarke, Ian Venables, Finzi: Nick Pritchard (tenor), Ian Tindale (piano). New College Chapel, Oxford 21.10.2022. (CR)
Gurney – Five Elizabethan Songs
Rebecca Clarke – Down by the Salley Gardens; The Seal Man; God made a tree
Ian Venables – A Kiss, Op.15; Pain, Op.10; Flying Crooked, Op.28 No.1
Finzi – Oh Fair to See, Op.13b
In this late-night recital Nick Pritchard sang a gaggle of songs whose typically mild and melancholy tinged character suited the subdued atmosphere of the antechapel of New College in nocturnal hush. Even the three objects by up to date composer Ian Venables fitted in effectively with the others, all typically written within the modal, folksong-inflected idiom of the primary a part of the 20 th century that was one English reply to different types of musical Modernism elsewhere.
Each group of songs was effectively honed by Pritchard and Ian Tindale, having been carried out by them on numerous events beforehand, and all right here sung by the previous from reminiscence. His clear, truthfully projected singing matched the often-guileless innocence and allure of the phrases set, notably in Gurney’s sequence of 5 Elizabethan songs, enabling explicit phrases or phrases to be emphasised with heat or wider vibrato, or deeper expressivity as event required. The timeless, easy high quality of Rebecca Clarke’s setting of ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, like a folksong, rightly obtained a easily sustained efficiency, while Venables’s Pain, to phrases by Gurney, was efficient additionally for not artificially underlining the tortured phrases and concepts expressed however expounded with unaffected eloquence.
Pritchard maintained an identical easeful supply in Finzi’s cycle Oh Fair to See however imbued with a contact of remorse or solemnity to tell apart the composer’s refined setting of phrases from mere artlessness. Tindale’s assist was sympathetic and alert, bringing life and color to those well-crafted items, and including its personal commentary to the texts.
Curtis Rogers
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