The mature Delius orchestral songs, such as the English and Scandinavian songs recorded here, are surely minor masterpieces. And while they periodically remind us of almost every great late-romantic master who turned to the genre (Mahler, Richard Strauss, Grieg, and the Frenchmen too: Duparc and Chausson), they could be by nobody else. This selection, only the second ever recorded, expands our knowledge of a neglected area of Delius’s output with a handful of premieres, and proves just how cosmopolitan Delius was.
The first-ever selection, recorded in the early-1980s on Unicorn (and now available at mid price), has a handful of songs in common with this new one, and was from a trio of Britain’s finest singers – Dame Felicity Lott, Sarah Walker and Anthony Rolfe Johnson – with the late Eric Fenby on the podium. And you only need compare them in A Late Lark, a particularly poignant sunset leave-taking (approaching darkness for encroaching blindness?) to appreciate the gulf between the different approaches: Rolfe Johnson and Fenby with the quietude, repose and space for the significance of the vision, and more time for the modulations – those shifts of perception and perspective – to make their effect (not to mention the intimations of Britten’s Keats setting in his Serenade); in contrast Carole Farley is more impulsive, operatic and openly rapturous; and a minute-and-a-half shorter (a ‘late lark’ determined not to be too late?).
But during the course of this song (the first on the disc) I became aware of aspects of Farley’s singing which distracted me from full appreciation of this and many of the other songs on the disc. Hers is basically a rich, alluring and wide-ranging soprano, and pitching is generally fine. But, while a few elisions might be thought an advantage for this kind of repertory, the frequently dropped consonants can only be regarded as carelessness; and the highly variable vowel sounds (both English and German), as mannerism. What appears to be on show here is something of a masterclass in diva mimicry: a determination at times to invest every other word with a different colouring, so that the text seems merely a vehicle for vocal variety.
The Dinemec recording might have its admirers (and please hers), with the soprano given ‘star status’ in terms of balance, and plenty of reverberation to compensate for the physical closeness. It’s sexy, but hardly a convincing illusion of concert-hall reality. Fortunately we have the Unicorn-Kanchana discs, with their ideal distance and natural ambience, and more involving reportage of Delius’s distinctive orchestral writing and harmonic movement.
Among the premieres on this new disc is an orchestral Suite arranged by Beecham from Delius’s first opera Irmelin, a 19-minute piece extracting music from Act 2 (complementing the so-called Irmelin Prelude). In a nutshell, it is Wagner’s Rhine transferred to Norway, though more homely heroic and folkloric; charming and periodically quaint (sounding at times a little like early British film music). The Rheinische Philharmonie must have been intrigued and deliver a decent performance.
‘Decent’ will also serve for the playing of the short string pieces that round off the disc – in reverse order to the one stated on the booklet cover and suggested in the notes – our own Philharmonia Orchestra not quite capable of the focused tone and precise pitching, not to mention the poise and delineation of character, which Britten drew from the ECO strings in the Two Aquarelles.'