Close on the heels of Harmonia Mundi’s Poulenc/Britten disc (see above), featuring the excellent young French oboist Francois Leleux, comes this British issue with the vastly more experienced Sarah Francis and four talented colleagues, devoted entirely to Britten. While the two issues both feature the same four Britten pieces, in this case we also have music for solo piano, thin on the ground and relatively unimportant despite his mastery of the instrument. His Phantasy of 1932 for oboe and string trio was only the second work (despite masses of juvenilia) to which he accorded an opus number and a place in his catalogue: its wryly lyrical style, in which melodies neither expand nor relax, is typical of 1930s Britten but I prefer it to some others that he withheld but which have seen posthumous publication, including the Temporal Variations and Two Insect Pieces. The British players handle it well, more spaciously than the French ensemble, although the latter’s crisp focus is also effective. Sarah Francis and Michael Dussek give a firm and characterful account of the Temporal Variations, but the work is too long and strikes a series of self-conscious postures which I suspect the composer, if he ever looked at it in his maturity, later found as unconvincing as I do. Francis is equally skilled in the perkily shallow Insect Pieces (1935) and the more satisfying Six Metamorphoses for solo oboe (1951), a sequence sensitively evoking the ancient world, which she has recorded before and which displays her instrument to great advantage. Choosing between her and Leleux in this repertory is hard, but while both show skill and insight the newcomer offers more youthful freshness.
In the music for solo piano, Michael Dussek has the fingers for the awkwardly written Holiday Diary, but the opening “Early Morning Bathe” needs more vigorous high spirits and overall his somewhat restrained playing lacks the flair required if this callow suite is to makes its full effect – though the slow “Night” at the end is finely done. There is an inescapably audible misreading in “Funfair” at 0'43'', where an exposed and accented left-hand A in the treble clef is played as a C sharp in the bass, and another clef error at 1'08'' which hides Britten’s subtle hint at Petrushka. Yet Dussek is pleasingly subtle in the much later Night Piece and witty in the Five Waltzes, which are by far the earliest music on the disc and have real youthful charm. Clear, immediate recording.
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