Britten never recorded his 1948 realisation of The Beggar’s Opera commercially, so this issue is of immense value. Shortly after its premiere, the BBC Home Service and Third Programme broadcast the work no fewer than four times within a week: nothing remotely of that kind would occur today. Britten conducted some of the performances. Lord Harewood, then completing his tripos at Cambridge, managed to record most of one broadcast on 21 acetates, and those restored discs, carefully remastered by Roger Beardsley, is what we have here. Much of the dialogue wasn’t recorded, but it is virtually complete as regards the music. Not everything runs smoothly but enough is heard, in more than tolerable sound, to make the enterprise worthwhile.

As John Steane rightly pointed out when the only other (excellent) recording of this version was made under Steuart Bedford (Argo, 9/93 – nla), ‘…the sheer ingenuities of rhythm, counterpoint and orchestration keep the ear fully occupied and delighted. Much more, the process is one of absorption and re-creation, sometimes fierce and poignant, sometimes magical in its loveliness.’ The tunes, familiar from other arrangements, seem amiably to march with Britten’s brightly ingenious invention, which was deemed too clever by half by some at the time but that was a criticism Britten rightly ignored, as he should have in view of the arresting results.

With rather more justification, Pears’s Macheath was castigated for being too much of a matinée idol. Here, his dialogue seems impossibly mannered, but all is forgiven by his fresh, highly articulate, racy and often seductive delivery of the songs, more of them included here than in the traditional recensions. He is surrounded by colleagues who were mostly founder-members of the English Opera Group, of whom Nancy Evans’s feisty, beautifully sung Polly stands out. Some of her available recordings do not seem to do her justice but here, heard live, she makes an ideal Polly. Rose Hill, a noted Sadler’s Wells singer of the day, is a spirited Lucy. Jennifer Vyvyan, then at the start of her career, makes much of little as Jenny Diver.

Among the men, other than Macheath, George James and Otakar Kraus are nicely contrasted as Peachum and Lockit, a real feeling of sleazy character emerging from the recording. The sense of ensemble is palpable all round, and the work benefits greatly from having singers who can act rather than actors who may be able to sing. With the experience of performing the piece on stage, everyone is alive to the work’s dramatic possibilities, under the lively command of director Tyrone Guthrie (though an injudicious remark he made about Pears’s Macheath meant he immediately became one of Britten’s ‘corpses’). Britten conducts his score with a deft hand but sometimes the small orchestra sounds a shade too backward for one to appreciate all the subtleties of his writing.

The cast lists Gladys Parr as the Beggar, a role she did indeed take at some performances on stage, but the voice we hear is indubitably a man’s. This is a conundrum that ought to be solved. However, anyone interested in the history of Britten performance won’t want to be without this issue.