High among the most treasurable events in Britten’s time at the Aldeburgh Festival were invariably those in which he himself performed, not least in Mozart. It is good to have these three splendid examples, each of them in different ways illustrating the interplay and response that Britten drew from his fellow musicians. In his keenly perceptive commentary Roger Vignoles analyses how Britten magnetized the ear, whether conducting or playing the piano. Hearing this performance of the G minor Quartet – given at a September event at The Maltings, not at the summer festival – has made me marvel yet again at the astonishing expressiveness Britten could bring to even a simple scale passage.
He is very much first among equals here – his partners three distinguished members of the ECO at the time – but as Vignoles points out, he encourages them ‘to exploit their own lines to the full.’ It is interesting that Britten anticipates latter-day taste in his observation of repeats, including them in both halves of the opening Allegro of the Piano Quartet, and thus giving this weighty G minor movement its musical due. The slow movement flows easily and the finale sparkles with no feeling of pressure, with Britten’s articulation crisp and clear, his phrasing always persuasive.
Moving on to the B flat Piano Concerto, I confess that for a moment I was disappointed that Britten himself was not playing as well as conducting. In principle it is not a perfect match with Richter for, as Vignoles points out, his Mozart style is cooler than Britten’s, and in the second movement – for which Richter sets a very slow tempo – Britten subtly presses the music ahead in the tuttis, only to have Richter re-enter at his steady pulse. The account of this very concerto, which Britten recorded five years later with Clifford Curzon, is markedly warmer, but the transparency of Richter’s playing is magical, most of all in his quicksilver account of the finale.
The recording of the concerto, made in Blythburgh Church, is a little thin, with an edge on the violins, but the first item on the disc, also recorded at Blythburgh, has Elly Ameling sounding wonderfully fresh and bell-like in Exsultate, jubilate – as radiant as I have ever known her on disc. By today’s standards the strings are heavyish and the speeds relaxed, but with crisply sprung rhythms it is a delight from beginning to end, with Ameling immaculate in the most elaborate divisions, and not an aspirate in sight. I look forward to many more BBC Legends from this source.'