Several young and sceptical listeners have, I know, been converted to this work by Britten's electrifying interpretation. Listening to it again on CD, where the sound is clearer and more truthful than on LP, only enhanced my view expressed in 1972 that this is ''a searing re-creation of the drama that I find at all times involving and convincing''. Looking up that notice after I had made my notes on the CD transfer, I found them agreeing in almost every particular. In the Prelude Britten immediately announces his sense of forward movement, urgency and dramatic tension: we know this is a performance that will convey Elgar's own sense of awe and mystery and that will give vital energy to all aspects of the orchestral part—listen, at fig. 12, to the depth and concentration of the string tone when the ''Go forth'' theme is first enunciated. Then, Britten brings out arrestingly what William Alwyn in his notes to the original set called so appropriately the ''ejaculatory, fragmented, jagged, thrusting'' music after ''I can no more'', the furious, fantastic lead-in to the Demons' Chorus, and much later the single sforzando chord before the Angel of the Agony's repeat of ''Jesu! spare these souls''. At all times he's alert to his fellow composer's meticulous markings—such as the hairpin crescendos and decrescendos in the Demons' Chorus and the Animato in ''Praise to the Holiest'' (fig. 89). Nor is there once any of the lingering that can lead to sentimentality.
As in all his choral conducting Britten insisted on precision in the treatment of words. Thus the dotted notes and verbal emphasis at ''Lord deliver him'' are exactly right. But none of this attention to minutiae in any way precludes him from presenting a longer view of the piece, obviously felt as a true drama, what Alwyn insisted is an opera in two acts in all but name. Britten and his singers respond, as almost no others, to the peculiar eloquence and beauty of Newman's text, however foreign anyone may feel to the beliefs being expressed. More recent conductors have, of course, been aware of these attributes (as I have often stated here, it brings out the best in its interpreters), but I have always made the point that Britten's interpretation had something extra to offer that made it, in a sense, hors concours and that is doubly confirmed on CD.
Britten's choir is smaller and therefore more incisive than any of its rivals, but I would say there was little to choose between the London Symphony Chorus of 1972 and its present-day counterparts under Hickox on Chandos. I see I wrote in 1972 that Britten's choir was backwardly placed. On CD, I find the choral contributions quite immediate enough and ideally balanced, in Decca's very faithful and natural recording (preferable I think to any other) from The Maltings, Snape.
Sir Peter Pears's response to the text is memorable, not merely a question of good diction but also of the subtle inflexion of phrases such as ''How still it is!'' and ''Thy judgement now is near'', equalled only by Nash on the 1945 Sargent (EMI) set. ''Novissima hora est'', always a test of a Gerontius, is sung with just the mystical feeling Elgar intends and the whole dialogue with the Angel is eloquently achieved. In extremis, the tone comes under uncomfortable pressure, but that seems a small price to pay for so many insights. I would rather hear his Gerontius than any other at present available though others may feel that Arthur Davies's more forthright style and secure voice, on the Hickox set, are preferable.
My one revaluation since the set first appeared concerns Yvonne Minton's Angel. Her straight-forward singing seems to me as apt for the role as any, and her voice as such has no rival. The tone here is really lovely and radiant—her high A on ''Alleluia'' quite thrilling, and ''Softly and gently'' as consoling as it should be. Shirley-Quirk's two contributions are deeply expressive—in the second Britten emphasizes Elgar's affinity with the Wagner of Parsifal.
So I need hardly add that I found the experience of this performance once again deeply moving. As a bonus there is Boult's idiomatic 1962 version of Hymn of Jesus. Comparisons with the excellent Groves/EMI disc are pointless as choice will obviously be governed by the couplings—Groves's CD is wholly devoted to Holst.'