Proms Chamber Music, Dowland and Britten BBC4

[Mary Chambers]

I'm afraid I only posted this topic because I wanted to rant somewhere about Ian Bostridge's singing of the Second Lute Song from Gloriana. I can only hope it sounded better in the Cadogan Hall than it did on my television. Almost unrecognisable. I'm not convinced he knew what notes he was supposed to be singing. I am not anti-Bostridge normally.

James Gilchrist is doing better with Songs from the Chinese.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm afraid I only posted this topic because I wanted to rant somewhere about Ian Bostridge's singing of the Second Lute Song from Gloriana. I can only hope it sounded better in the Cadogan Hall than it did on my television. Almost unrecognisable. I'm not convinced he knew what notes he was supposed to be singing. I am not anti-Bostridge normally.

James Gilchrist is doing better with Songs from the Chinese.

Mary, you know my views but yes this was awful. Not sure what concert this was from - not the one with Kenny and Fretwork? JG and the Songs a bit better, yes. But I hear a sort of studied archness in his voice too, something I also hear in Padmore. Heard Pears and Britten perform these on the South Bank in '72, magical, and of course I have the record.

The Bream programme immediately afterwards a joy.

[Mary Chambers]

Kenny played the lute for the Britten. I recorded it and have just watched the recording, which was made on a better television than I was watching last night, and although it is still awful it doesn't sound quite as bad as I thought yesterday. Phrasing and diction all over the place nevertheless, and far, far too self-conscious.

James Gilchrist has a beautiful voice, I think, but none of these singers seem able to produce divine simplicity, as Pears could. I'm sure what he did was studied, but it never seemed so. He just seemed to be holding an intimate conversation with the listener.

I recorded the Bream programme too, and will watch it later today.

[Richard Tarleton]

Kenny played the lute for the Britten. I recorded it and have just watched the recording, which was made on a better television than I was watching last night, and although it is still awful it doesn't sound quite as bad as I thought yesterday. Phrasing and diction all over the place nevertheless, and far, far too self-conscious.

James Gilchrist has a beautiful voice, I think, but none of these singers seem able to produce divine simplicity, as Pears could. I'm sure what he did was studied, but it never seemed so. He just seemed to be holding an intimate conversation with the listener.

I recorded the Bream programme too, and will watch it later today.w

Fascinating to observe the differences between Bream's self-taught lute technique and the HIP Liz Kenny in the previous half hour - Bream using very much a classical guitar right hand technique, playing with fingernails, she with little finger always in contact with the soundboard, right hand thumb operating "inside" the fingers, playing with the fleshy tips of the fingers....and the lutes, Bream's with fixed metal frets, Kenny's with tied gut frets. The authentic lute movement criticised Bream at the time (the 50s and 60s) but it was he who put Dowland and the lute on the world stage and today all recognise him for the pioneer he was. He and Pears together - unforgettable.

[Mary Chambers]

It's a pity that the lovely 1959 Canadian TV snippet of Pears and Bream performing two songs by Dowland and Rosseter wasn't on the BBC and shown on this programme. It's on YouTube if anyone's interested.

[Honoured Guest]

... Ian Bostridge's singing of the Second Lute Song from Gloriana.

Fretwork is currently on an extensive tour of this John Dowland programme with Ian Bostridge and Elizabeth Kenny. I attended one of the concerts earlier this week, and have also caught last night's tv highlights from last summer's Chamber Prom. This same Britten song was the first encore, so it's obviously an unannounced integral part of this John Dowland programme. I'm unfamiliar with how Peter Pears sang it, but I assume it was very much in the context of the opera and of the whole body of Britten. In this concert, it was sung in the context of John Dowland, and was performed in the same style as the rest of the programme, which I gather wasn't to your taste!

I noticed that the tv sound balance made the lute clearly audible against the viol consort, although this did make the lute seem to be twanging away extraordinarily loudly at times. In the hall this week, the full viol consort drowned the lute, and the tenor matched the viols. The sound balance with the lute was fine in pieces with fewer or no viols.

In the hall this week, the viol consort sat in the same configuration as in the Prom, but the lutenist and the tenor had swapped seats. Can anyone suggest whether there could have been a musical reason for this? If not, might it be some archaic etiquette, because in the hall the male tenor had to walk two paces further than the female lutenist to reach his seat?

Please go easy on me in your replies because I'm a musical ignoramus, and just curious to listen to some music.

[Mary Chambers]

This same Britten song was the first encore, so it's obviously an unannounced integral part of this John Dowland programme. I'm unfamiliar with how Peter Pears sang it, but I assume it was very much in the context of the opera and of the whole body of Britten. In this concert, it was sung in the context of John Dowland, and was performed in the same style as the rest of the programme, which I gather wasn't to your taste!

.

In fact Pears sometimes sang the Second Lute Song as a concert item, and he recorded it with Julian Bream, though it was with guitar rather than lute. He and Bream made a beautiful recording of Elizabethan lute songs, which Pears loved singing. He sang the Gloriana lute song in the same way. It's very Dowland-ish, though I think it was Wilbye who wrote the opening line 'Happy were he". (I'll have to check that, can't quite remember.)

(The words are taken from a poem by the Earl of Essex, and Wilbye wrote a madrigal with the same title and first line, but a different poem.)

[Richard Tarleton]

In the hall this week, the viol consort sat in the same configuration as in the Prom, but the lutenist and the tenor had swapped seats. Can anyone suggest whether there could have been a musical reason for this? If not, might it be some archaic etiquette, because in the hall the male tenor had to walk two paces further than the female lutenist to reach his seat?

Please go easy on me in your replies because I'm a musical ignoramus, and just curious to listen to some music.

Bream used to sit on Pears's right when just the two of them were performing (both sitting down). Any etiquette would, I guess, be modern, as consort music was originally domestic music performed as often as not seated around a table, rather than on a stage facing an audience.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm afraid I only posted this topic because I wanted to rant somewhere about Ian Bostridge's singing of the Second Lute Song from Gloriana. I can only hope it sounded better in the Cadogan Hall than it did on my television. Almost unrecognisable. I'm not convinced he knew what notes he was supposed to be singing. I am not anti-Bostridge normally.

They've just done it again live on In Tune - IB loaded his long notes with heavy vibrato, or so it seemed to me.