Search - Benjamin Britten, Herbert Kegel, Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra :: Benjamin Britten: Les Illuminations/Serenade

Britten in Outer Space

moe_d_anglais | 05/02/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The "Serenade" has to be Britten's most compressed and dramatic work; all the force of his greatest operas is distilled into a few minutes. Listen to the opening horn-solo;in just a few seconds, it establishes the otherworldly atmosphere that prevails throughout the work. It is scored for the natural horn,and its rough, dark tones bring out the qualities perfectly. ....The Serenade was written in 1942, and you can hear the Blitz as an undertone to almost every note. Yet it is overtly just a nocturnal, a piece about the approach of night, with poems drawn the finest of five centuries of English literature. The "Dirge" is such a tour-de-force that it might cause us to overlook the other pieces, but this would be a mistake. The wonderful delicacy of the Keats sonnet is the profoundest expression of wistfulness and sehnsucht in English music. An absolutely unique work which deserves to be at the top of the list of English classics, but it is probably too rarified to appeal to the Proms crowd. ....Peter Schreier's rendition is great, except that his English is bad, so you don't always understand what he's singing (hence only four stars). Still, a German would probably have a better feel for this work than an Englishman or American. ....The horn work is flawless, and the fact than you can hear Opitz straining to bring the right notes out of this ancient instrument adds to the effect. ...."Les Illuminations" is mainly important as an indicator of how Britten developed the techniques he would later use in the "Serenade" (which should have been first on the disc). ....Anyone who appreciates Britten's operas MUST have the "Serenade"."