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Britten - Owen Wingrave

£27.76

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHAN104732

Barcode: 0095115147320

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 2nd June 2008

Works

Britten, Benjamin

Owen Wingrave, op.85

Artists

Peter Colman-Wright (baritone)
Robin Leggate (tenor)
Elizabeth Connell (soprano)
Janice Watson (soprano)
Sarah Fox (soprano)
Alan Opie (baritone)
Pamela Helen Stephen (mezzo-soprano)
James Gilchrist (tenor)
Tiffin Boys Choir
City of London Sinfonia

Conductor

Richard Hickox

Works

Britten, Benjamin

Owen Wingrave, op.85

Artists

Conductor

Richard Hickox

About

Following the success of his recent performance of the opera at London’s Cadagon Hall, the seasoned Britten performer Richard Hickox has committed the composer’s rarely recorded Owen Wingrave to disc. Only one rival CD recording is available at present.

Commissioned by BBC television in 1966, the work is something of a Cinderella among Britten’s operas, despite its imaginative, closely knit score. One possible reason is that it was composed for television rather than the theatre. Like its 1954 predecessor, The Turn of the Screw, Owen Wingrave is based on a ghost story by Henry James. Britten read the story while he was working on The Turn of the Screw, and even then conceived the idea of setting it as an opera. The music employs the relatively spare textures that Britten adopted in his later years.

After the concert performance, The Guardian wrote: ‘Any doubts as to its worth, were quashed by this performance, conducted by Richard Hickox, who exposed, often with lethal precision, the moral paradox at the work’s centre. In depicting Owen’s determination to come out to his military family as a pacifist, Britten adopts a fiercely anti-war stance: yet the opera also envisions life as a battlefield, where death is often the price for the preservation of integrity. Hickox drew us through the resulting complexities with passionate subtlety. Ricocheting brass and clattering timpani delineated both Owen’s struggle and the forces of reaction that hem him in, while sensual strings and the sound of Britten’s beloved gamelan conveyed the vision of peace that drives Owen on.’ The Times commented: ‘Hickox and the CLS made every note count, every hiccupping rhythm, each transparent texture. Battle nightmares, sherry being poured: we saw them all, in sound.’

A host of wonderful soloists, including Alan Opie, James Gilchrist and Janice Watson, are accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia. With such a Britten expert as Hickox at the helm, this recording is sure to win the composer more converts.