BaL 27.06.15 - Britten: Les Illuminations

[Tony Halstead]

Which one? I think she made two - Naxos and Chandos.

Definitely Chandos/ RSNO/ Bryden Thomson, wonderful 'sound' as well as superlative performances ( which also include a great 'Serenade' from Rolfe Johnson and Mike Thompson)

[Nick Armstrong]

Definitely Chandos/ RSNO/ Bryden Thomson, wonderful 'sound' as well as superlative performances ( which also include a great 'Serenade' from Rolfe Johnson and Mike Thompson)

Yes!!!

[richardfinegold]

Definitely Chandos/ RSNO/ Bryden Thomson, wonderful 'sound' as well as superlative performances ( which also include a great 'Serenade' from Rolfe Johnson and Mike Thompson)

That's the one that I have. I purchased it after a Concert performance featuring Johnson here, many years ago, the first time I had heard the piece.

Actually, I mis remembered...the Concert that I heard featured the Serenade, Op.40 I still remember the sounds of the Horn...the disc that I purchased for that piece had Les Illuminations as the filler...

[Pulcinella]

......by this afternoon I'll be back with the ladies, no doubt!

Do they need to be warned?

[Beef Oven!]

Do they need to be warned?

[Richard Tarleton]

Hmmmm....devil's advocate and all that....I've just listened again (after a long interval) to the Pears/Britten, following the text in the booklet. Can any of our Francophone forumites actually understand or follow the words, at least in this version? My French is a bit ropey admittedly, but I can hardly make out a word. Perhaps it's just me. French not my favourite sung language at the best of times. I thought I was doing quite well with some of Beef's ladies yesterday

And the words.....in search of, er, illumination, I had a look at the Wiki entry for the pomes. I found this line helpful:

Another aspect of Rimbaud's style, which also contributes to the visionary quality of the poems, is his use of words for their evocative quality rather than their literal meaning.

Robert Shelton's 1986 biography of Bob Dylan quotes a conversation between Dylan and Dave van Ronk, who allegedly first pointed Dylan at Rimbaud...."I didn't mention Rimbaud to him again until I heard his 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall'....I said to Bob: 'You know, that song of yours is heavy in symbolism, don't you?' He said: 'Huh?' ".

[Roehre]

Hmmmm....devil's advocate and all that....I've just listened again (after a long interval) to the Pears/Britten, following the text in the booklet. Can any of our Francophone forumites actually understand or follow the words, at least in this version? My French is a bit ropey admittedly, but I can hardly make out a word. Perhaps it's just me. French not my favourite sung language at the best of times. I thought I was doing quite well with some of Beef's ladies yesterday .....

Rimbaud can be set in a way that the words actually can be understood very well, as e.g. in Rudolf Escher's Univers de Rimbaud, set for a tenor.
(and Here another clip)

[Mary Chambers]

I don't find it difficult to follow, but I suppose I first heard it many years ago and followed the printed text then, so now I know the words more or less by heart.

I don't like French much as a sung language either, but this piece conveys the atmosphere of the words so well that I'm prepared to put up with it - and I think the poems are wonderful. I discovered them through Britten's setting.

[Don Petter]

I don't find it difficult to follow, but I suppose I first heard it many years ago and followed the printed text then, so now I know the words more or less by heart.

You echo my experience, though in the parts of BaL that I heard during an interrupted car journey, my impression was that it was the sopranos, particularly in the upper register, who made the words impossible to hear.

As for understanding the meaning of the words, I don't think you need to 'understand' them more than, say, those of Facade, which is another work which I dearly love for its imagery.

[Richard Tarleton]

As for understanding the meaning of the words, I don't think you need to 'understand' them more than, say, those of Facade, which is another work which I dearly love for its imagery.

Facade also sprang to mind. A link between the two here - see 2nd para. I do think tho' you ought to be able to hear the words, but perhaps put that down to my poor French.

[Flosshilde]

As for understanding the meaning of the words, I don't think you need to 'understand' them more than, say, those of Facade, which is another work which I dearly love for its imagery.

You might not need to 'understand' the words of Facade, but you do need to be able to hear them, as Sitwell wrote the poems as experiments in rhythm & sound, & that doesn't work if you can't hear the sounds clearly.

[Mary Chambers]

Facade also sprang to mind. A link between the two here - see 2nd para. .

Except Britten didn't set a translation of the Rimbaud.

I've never thought to connect Façade (which I first knew as a ballet) with Les Illuminations. I find Façade much more obscure, though I do enjoy it. Peter Pears recorded it with Sitwell.

[Barbirollians]

I enjoyed the version by the young Belgian soprano Anne Catherine Gillet I think and it received good reviews in both Gramophone and IRR - did it get a mention ?

[Stanley Stewart]

I've yet to hear the BAL recording but gardening chores must take precedence and encourage me to go from MD - now completed - to CD-R, joining the two Britten Decca recordings of Les Illuminations on my shelves, this afternoon.

[Barbirollians]

You need to get a phone with internet radio ! I often catch up on BALs when out for a walk on iplayer radio - and the speaker is loud enough to hear a BAL in the garden.