Notes on the music

As Soden has revealed, before the premiere of King Priam the Lord Chamberlain fussily insisted on a tweak to the line ‘Shall we kiss, after the war’: instead of a pulsating guitar emphasis after ‘Shall we kiss’, the words were required to be shoved together, and hurried through (Michael Tippett, p. 466).

Like the Tippett songs, Thomas’s Swan has a palpably theatrical quality, principally in the range and drama of its vocal line, and it was a deliberate move on the part of this singercomposer to introduce his ‘operatic’ sound into a recital context. The visceral power of that voice brings a heightened expressiveness to the sometimes elusive, stripped-back poetry of Andrew McMillan – especially in the songs which deal with mental anguish (for example, at the close of vi and vii). There is lightness too, though, including a witty touch of the swanthemed Lohengrin at the mention of ‘weddings’ in song iv, and the subtle pianistic responses to the water imagery which permeates the whole work. The ‘year everything was darkness’ (v) is a compassionate response to a breakdown in its gentle vocal line and undulating piano figures. An instantly recognisable quotation from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake opens song vi, which is a nursery-rhyme-like gallop based on the same theme: ‘sing a swan of sixpence’. A slide into a remote key finds, briefly, another Swan Lake theme and a dramatic climb to a fortissimo top B flat. The voice reaches a semitone higher in song vii (‘queen’), a confessional coming-out, which brings in the key of D (possibly a deliberate reference to Britten’s favourite key?); and D is where the cycle ends, with tolling chords in the bass, mirroring those in C at the start. There is a sense of resolution here, at the end not just of Swan, but of this extraordinary historical journey. While there is ‘brokenness’ in the last song, the final line seems to offer hope of some kind of unification: ‘I watched myself […] fall towards myself.’

© 2023 Lucy Walker

Lucy Walker is a freelance writer and public speaker specialising in twentieth- and twentyfirst-century music. She worked for many years at The Red House in Aldeburgh, the former home of Benjamin Britten, and has written extensively on his life and work.

The production of this recording has been assisted by generous support from Les Azuriales Opera Trust, Manchester Welsh Society and the following individuals:

Christopher Ball

Katie Bradford

Graham Chong-Brookman

John Derrick & Preben Oeye

Clare Echlin

Peter & Fiona Espenhahn

Gini Gabbertas

Dr Paul Gilluley & Mr Tim Hardy

Malcolm Herring

Peter & Veronica Lofthouse

Tina & Tom Maxwell

Kate Olver & Jeremy Young

Ann Orton

Dr Michael Shipley & Philip Rudge

Robin Wilkinson & Ken Watters

Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo

1 In every work of art, or so it seems to me, The noble style is merged with the lowly. All art is therefore both profane and holy And our fancy determines what we may see. Thus, my beloved lord, I see within you Great pride, of course, but also great humility, And so, over time, I’ve found the ability To draw out what I need, while hoping it is true.

If you sow tears and sighs and lamentation

(How strange the weeds we water with our weeping!

But what grows from them, that is even stranger …)

Deep despair you will reap, and desolation.

The man who sees your face, oh, he’ll be reaping Vain hopes and dreams, and bitter doubt and danger, Beloved lord.

For grief is stronger far than joy, of that I am certain.

The blows of fate are what I must stay strong for –

They bruise my soul but somehow make me calmer

Even though they strike my spirit senseless, These painful blows that secretly I long for –Then no wonder that I who stand defenceless Have been imprisoned by a knight in armour.

4 I know you know, my lord, I know you know The longing that I feel when I am near you, I know you know how I worship and revere you.

Why are we wary when we say ‘hello’? If truly what I hope for isn’t wrong, If truly I am right to feel this longing, Break down the wall that keeps us from each other!

And let the echo who never heard my weeping Return my lonely sighs to my safekeeping. I will require all these to please another love, Since plainly you no longer need me.

2 Ah! why am I condemned to vent my passion

In bitter tears and fervent lamentation

If heaven above, our final destination, Will not allow relief in any fashion?

And why should I desire the final curtain?

All of us have to die – all of us have to die!

Maybe my final moments here on this earth will be less painful,

3 There is a light – a light I see with your eyes, But with my own I stumble in the darkness. There is a weight – a weight I bear upon your shoulders, Which on my own is far too great to carry.

I have no wings – and yet I soar on your wings: Borne on your spirit I rise up to heaven. If you desired it, I’d blush or turn ashen, Freezing in summer or baking in deep midwinter.

I have no will, unless that will is your will. I have no thoughts unless those thoughts are your thoughts.

I have no words unless you’re there to breathe them.

Like the moon, I am dark unless you light me –

The moon no human eye can see Unless it is lit by one light: By your beautiful sunlight.

Desire frustrated is twenty times as strong. Everything I feel, my lord and master, Cannot be spoken aloud, must be hidden, For you are all I venerate and cherish. The state of mind that makes our hearts beat faster Is so maligned that it is still forbidden. And he who dares to voice it – has to perish.

6 If Love is chaste, if Mercy comes from heaven, If, when there’s bounty, two lovers can share it, If when there’s heartache both of them can bear it, If two hearts are ruled by one greater spirit … If in two hearts one soul can live forever, Soaring to heaven, flying there together; If, at a stroke, with a burning golden arrow Love can pierce two human souls to the marrow;

5 Rivers and fountains, kindly give my tears back – I need them.

All those silvery streams were stolen from me. All those cascading currents, which had never flowed quite so fiercely, I need back in my eyes.

You stormy skies, full of lowering tempests: All your clouds are mine, made of my sighs and yearning, So will you please return them And take them back to my aching heart, which has been parted from them!

And let the earth reclaim my heavy footprints –Let the grass grow again where I destroyed it –

If they devote their whole lives to each other, To shared philosophy and mutual pleasure, There’s a rare reward they will discover –A field of gold, a horde of hidden treasure. If our love and our faith work such a wonder, Then how can mere anger rend us asunder?

7 Virtuous spirit, we see in your reflection Peerless beauty, beyond all admiration. You are the ne plus ultra of Creation, Proof that the Heavens can beget perfection. Delicate spirit, the world can see how clearly Love and Pity and Mercy shine around you, Shine from the flawless face I love so dearly … I’d not dreamed of such grace until I found you.

I am love’s captive, your radiance enchains me;

I am lost in a maze of blind devotion. But still within my heart (oh! how it pains me)

The terrifying thought, the very notion

That cruel Fate could shatter such completeness –

That Death may lay a finger on such sweetness.

Jeremy Sams (b. 1957)

© 1943 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd

This translation © 2022 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd

By permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd

Four Songs of Youth

8 Failure

Because God put His adamantine fate

Between my sullen heart and its desire, I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy, But Love was as a flame about my feet; Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat

Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry –

All the great courts were quiet in the sun, And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown Over the glassy pavement, and begun To creep within the dusty council-halls.

An idle wind blew round an empty throne And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

9 Unfortunate

Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap

That’s tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;

Saying, ‘She is most wise, patient and kind. Between the small hands folded in her lap Surely a shamed head may bow down at length, And find forgiveness where the shadows stir About her lips, and wisdom in her strength, Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!’ …

She will not care. She’ll smile to see me come, So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me. She’ll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me, And open wide upon that holy air

The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,

Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.

10 The Dance

As the Wind, and as the Wind, In a corner of the way, Goes stepping, stands twirling, Invisibly, comes whirling, Bows before, and skips behind, In a grave, an endless play –

Stirs dust of old dreams there; He turns a toe; he gleams there, Treading you a dance apart. But you see not. You pass on.

11 Peace 1914

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping! With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary;

Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love! Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;

Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there, But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

12 To Gratiana dancing and singing

See! with what constant motion, Even and glorious as the sun, Gratiana steers that noble frame. Soft as her breast, sweet as her voice That gave each winding law and poise, And swifter than the wings of Fame. Each step trod out a lover’s thought And th’ ambitious hopes he brought, Chain’d to her brave feet with such arts; Such sweet command and gentle awe As when she ceas’d, we sighing saw The floor lay pav’d with broken hearts. So did she move, so did she sing, Like the harmonious spheres that bring Unto their rounds their music’s aid, Which she performèd such a way, As all th’ enamour’d world will say:

‘The Graces danc’d, and Apollo play’d!’

Richard Lovelace (1618–1657)

The texts for tracks 13–23 have not been included for copyright reasons.

So my Heart, and so my Heart, Following where your feet have gone,

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)

Biographies

Tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas hails from Llandudno, North Wales. He is a former English National Opera Harewood Artist and his roles for them include Prologue/Quint The Turn of the Screw, Johnny Inkslinger Paul Bunyan, Nanki Poo The Mikado and Ralph Rackstraw HMS Pinafore.

As a former Scottish Opera Emerging Artist, his roles include Nemorino L’elisir d’amore, Brighella Ariadne auf Naxos (also for Opera Holland Park), Dr Richardson in the European premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves (which also toured to the Adelaide Festival in Australia), Fenton Falstaff, Lysander

A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rinuccio

Gianni Schicchi. Elgan made his Royal Opera House debut as First Nobleman of Brabant Lohengrin and his Grange Park Opera double debut as Cassio Otello and The Steersman Der fliegende Holländer.

Elgan made his international opera debut as Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and revived the role for Opéra National de Bordeaux under the baton of Marc Minkowski. He is also a former Equilibrium Young Artist, in which capacity he performed the title role of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at Klarafestival / La Monnaie, the Aldeburgh Festival, and Ojai Music Festival in California, all conducted by Barbara Hannigan.

Opéra Comique, Paris, and his role debut as The Duke of Mantua Rigoletto for Opera Holland Park. Upcoming engagements include joining Barbara Hannigan again on a European tour of The Rake’s Progress as Tom Rakewell with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

Elgan is a past winner of the Urdd National Eisteddfod Bryn Terfel Scholarship; the Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize (National Eisteddfod of Wales); the Stuart Burrows International Voice Award and, in the same year, its inaugural Audience Prize; and the Young Artist Prize and Audience Prize at Les Azuriales Opera Festival. A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Elgan is now based in Stockport, where he lives with his partner Michael and their dogs Wotan and Gunther. In 2022 he was honoured to be made an Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Medtner (2 CDs) and Rachmaninoff (3 CDs; ‘the results are electrifying’ – Daily Telegraph) as well as more Schubert with Ailish Tynan and Roderick Williams, and groundbreaking releases devoted to the songs of Buxton Orr, Erik Chisholm, Hubert Parry, Martin Shaw, Ina Boyle and others. He curates programmes for a variety of festivals and at Wigmore Hall, most recently with a spotlight on Russian song, and is Artistic Director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend. His interest in chamber music has led to the formation of Trio Balthasar, a group committed to imaginative programming, with colleagues Michael Foyle and Tim Hugh.

Described by BBC Music Magazine as ‘a worthy successor to Julian Bream’, Australianborn guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation. He has performed concertos with many of the world’s leading orchestras, and appears regularly as soloist and chamber musician at major venues.

Recent appearances include Dr Richardson

Breaking the Waves in his house debut at the

Internationally acclaimed as a leading collaborative pianist (‘pretty much ideal’

– BBC Music Magazine), Iain Burnside has worked with many of the world’s great singers. His discography features over sixty CDs, spanning a huge sweep of repertoire. Highlights include Schubert’s song-cycles with baritone Roderick Williams on Chandos and a twenty-plus-volume English Song Series for Naxos. He enjoys a close relationship with Delphian, which has resulted in boxed sets of

Burnside is also an award-winning broadcaster, familiar to listeners of BBC Radio 3. He has pioneered a particular form of dramatised concert, with works based variously around Franz Schubert, Clara Schumann, Richard Wagner and Ivor Gurney. A long association with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama has led to masterclasses at home and abroad. In 2022 Burnside devised and directed Open Your Eyes and Tell Me What You See, an eco-project shared between conservatoires in Dublin, London, Paris and Salzburg. He is Artistic Consultant to Grange Park Opera.

As one of the UK’s most recorded guitarists, he has built up an acclaimed discography on Chandos, Virgin/EMI, Nimbus, Hyperion, Sony and six chart-topping albums for Classic FM. His most recent recordings are a solo recital album for Chandos, Craig Ogden in Concert, and a new arrangement of the Goldberg Variations for Nimbus with violinist David Juritz and cellist Tim Hugh. He frequently records for film and has presented programmes for BBC Radio 3, BBC Northern Ireland and ABC Classic FM in Australia.

Craig Ogden is Director of Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music, Adjunct Fellow of the University of Western Australia, Associate Artist at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and Director of the Dean & Chadlington Summer Music Festival. He plays a 2011 Greg Smallman guitar and strings made by D’Addario.

Ina Boyle (1889–1967): Songs

Paula Murrihy, Robin Tritschler, Ben McAteer, Iain Burnside

DCD34264

In lifelong seclusion in rural County Wicklow, Ina Boyle created a legacy of song – tender, often melancholy, illuminated by an exquisite sense for harmony. ‘I think it is most courageous of you to go on with such little recognition,’ wrote Vaughan Williams to his pupil. ‘The only thing to say is that it does come finally.’

Amid the 2020 pandemic, Iain Burnside gathered three superb Irish singers at London’s Wigmore Hall. Recorded in less than five hours, the resulting 80 minutes of music unveil a composer who is one of Ireland’s ‘invisible heroines’. Half a century after Boyle’s death, is Vaughan Williams’ prediction at last coming true?

‘a real box of delights – the Irish composer emerges as a hugely versatile voice and a natural melodist’

— Presto Classical, September 2021, EDITOR’S CHOICE

Erik Chisholm (1904–1965): Songs

Mhairi Lawson, Nicky Spence, Michael Mofidian, Iain Burnside

DCD34259

Erik Chisholm made his home as a musician in South Africa but it was in the Gaelic folk tunes of his native Scotland that he found lifelong inspiration for his songs. Modern yet instantly accessible and engaging, and revelling in the Scots language, their apparent simplicity belies the composer’s sophisticated craftsmanship. Pianist Iain Burnside and three of the brightest stars in the firmament of Scottish singers bring out the individual characters of these pieces, by turns haunting, tender and irreverent, making of each one a uniquely coloured little jewel.

‘eclectically characterful musical slivers, many of them indebted to Scottish traditional music, all imbued with an independent, sometimes musically spicy spirit … Strong and sensitive performances’

— Irish Times, July 2021

Héloïse Werner: Phrases with Lawrence Power, Colin Alexander, Laura Snowden, Calum Huggan, Daniel Shao, Amy Harman

DCD34269

Luminous and daring, this celebration of Héloïse Werner’s multifaceted gifts is nourished by rich dualities. Phrases reveals Werner as both singer and composer, as an artist shaped by both her native France and her adopted UK, and as a soloist of captivating individuality who is also an intrepid collaborator. The solos and duos that make up the album comprise five of Werner’s own compositions, four of Georges Aperghis’s avant-garde classic Récitations, and six newly commissioned works, by composers ranging from Elaine Mitchener and Cheryl Frances-Hoad to Nico Muhly and Oliver Leith. The calibre of Héloïse’s instrumental partners in the duos reflects the degree to which this extraordinary young performer is already valued and cherished by her peers.

‘a soprano of extraordinary abilities, possessing a seemingly inexhaustible expressive range, [and] a composer and arranger of subtle imagination … Delphian’s sound is first-rate, catching the full dynamic range and every nuance of Werner’s voice’ — Gramophone, June 2022, EDITOR’S CHOICE

Insomnia: a nocturnal voyage in song

William Berger, Iain Burnside

DCD34116

For his solo debut on disc, baritone William Berger has devised an ingenious sequence of seventeen songs describing a sleepless night experienced by a man who reflects on his love for an unnamed woman. From Viennese classicism to fin-de-siècle Romanticism, shadowy English pastoral to the contemporary worlds of Richard Rodney Bennett and Raymond Yiu, this wideranging programme is brought to nuanced life by an outstanding young singer. ‘plays out its chronological narrative … with logical and psychological inevitability. Berger sustains a magnetic affection throughout the varied sequence, aided by Iain Burnside’s deft pianism’

— The Scotsman, July 2012