Soon after his return from America, at the height of the war in 1943, Britten wrote incidental music for a radio play by Edward Sackville-West on the Homeric subject of Odysseus’s return to Penelope. Drawn from the complete score with barely any amendment of the original, and compressed into a 36-minute cantata, with Chris de Souza tailoring the text and Colin Matthews, Britten’s last amanuensis, most tactfully editing the music, the result is extraordinarily powerful. The most important role is that of the narrator, here masterfully taken by Dame Janet Baker who brings the story vividly to life despite the stylized classical language (e.g. “Odysseus, Lord of sea-girt Ithaca” or “His fair wife, white-armed Penelope”). Rather confusingly Athene also appears as a soprano, with the radiant Alison Hagley sounding totally unlike Dame Janet. She is one of a godly quartet of singers who contribute Greek-style commentaries – vocal passages which regularly add to the atmospheric beauty of the piece.
The surprise is that the idiom is not for the most part very Britten-like, except in the vitality of the writing. When Britten wrote his pre-war film scores for the Post Office, he had only a handful of players, and the result is already highly characteristic. Here with a bigger orchestra, he allows himself far richer sounds, with the strings in particular often sounding more like Walton, or even (at the happy end) Hollywood. The result is hugely enjoyable, and for all the unexpected echoes – not just of Walton’s film music but even of Elgar at one point (track 7) and Wagner at another (track 13) – the more one listens, the more one identifies Britten. What matters is that this is all endlessly inventive in a very Britten-like way, as when Odysseus is transformed into an old man, and his theme descends from solo viola, to cello and finally to double-bass. And who else but Britten would have thought of giving the theme of the heroine, Penelope, most poignantly, to an alto saxophone? This is music which is not just illustrative but strong and purposeful in heightening the drama, in bringing home emotions, as when Telemachus recognizes his father. A welcomes addition to the Britten oeuvre.
It is apt that another encapsulated classical drama should provide the coupling, particularly one inspired by the singing of Dame Janet Baker. Phaedra was Britten’s last vocal work, and after the richness of the early work the spareness of the writing hits one the more sharply. Lorraine Hunt’s performance may not quite match that of Dame Janet in conveying the heroine’s agony, but there is comparable intensity, with vocal colouring of similarly grave beauty and variety; with Hunt this is above all the portrait of a deranged woman, chillingly powerful.
In both works Kent Nagano draws strongly committed playing from the Halle, with some fine solo work, instrumental as well as vocal. Though, reasonably enough, Dame Janet’s narration is rather close in the bigger work, the sound is full and well-balanced.'