DESCRIPTION:
William Walton - Anon in Love

From the album backcover:

The repertoire is from the works of four contemporary composers, pace setters of their musical generations, all intimates of Pears and Bream. Most of the songs have been written expressly for this talented duo. The composers are Benjamin Britten and Sir William Walton, two of the greatest 20th century English composers; the late Matyas Seiber, Hungarian-born composer who migrated to England in 1935, musician in the tradition of Bartok and Schonberg, jazz authority and lover of the folk song; and Peter Racine Fricker, a student of Seiber, winner of the 1949 Koussevitsky Award, prolific composer of symphonies, concertos and chamber music.

As imposing as the artists and composers who make up this remarkable album is the setting where it was recorded -- the mellow Adam Library at Kenwood House, one of the great London mansions which was bequeathed -- along with its priceless art masterpieces and furniture-- to the National Trust in 1927 on the death of its owner, the Earl of Iveagh, heir to the Guiness Brewery fortune. Even the recording time was special -- late at night when the big house was closed to sightseers and only when silence and shadows, Rembrandt's "Portrait of the Painter in Old Age," Vermeer's "The Guitar Player," Watteaus atd Romneys kept the artists and technicians company.

"We chose the Adam Library at Kenwood House," says Julian Bream, "because it is a very beautiful room with a sympathetic atmosphere for intimate music. Its acoustics are wonderful. The room is full of Sheraton and Chippendale, and the old woods reflect the sound with clarity and luster. Peter Pears and I have often given concerts in the Adam Library. Its grace and charm were ideally suited to our mood and intention."

All the music on this record was written for the voice and guitar, the instrument that Bream feels "is the most beautiful accompaniment to the voice. The guitar has an evocative sound, lending support to the singer. One gives luster to the other. The guitar is also the perfect complement to Pears' voice, which has an instrumental quality and subtlety of intonation. He is a magnificent artist."

"When you consider," Bream muses, "that the guitar is usually associated with romantic Latin serenades, it is interesting that two Englishmen, Britten and Walton, have done such fine scores for this instrument. They get right down to it. The language is right."

The Britten works are Songs from the Chinese, a cycle of six numbers; the Second Lute Song from his opera Gloriana, which he wrote for the coronation of Elizabeth II, and five folk songs arranged for voice and guitar. "The six Chinese poems," says Bream, "are amusing, with satirical texts, and Britten's guitar score is one of the finest I have seen. We first performed the cycle at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1958. The folk songs were arranged for Pears and me because there is very little good music for voice and guitar.

"For other modern works for for voice and guitar," Bream continues, "we turned to Walton, who seems to understand the voice in a particularly sympathetic way. He composed a song cycle for us a few years ago entitled Anon. in Love --settings of six anonymous Elizabethan love poems. They are quite different from the Britten folk songs and slightly risque in nature."

Heard next are four French folk songs set by Matyas Seiber, who died on 1960. "These are more traditional," Bream observes. "They do not exploit the guitar but use it adroitly. Seiber's songs have charm and color and are classical in treatment."

Fricker's O Mistress Mine, the text taken from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," concludes the record."This is a curious song," Bream says thoughtfully. "Fricker is a serious, austere composer, yet he has written this poignant melody for Pears, and the words seem to it right in."

This is the first RCA recording Julian Bream made with Peter Pears. Long a cherished dream. Bream says of the album's wit, elegance and beauty: I'm satisfied."
- Marcia Drennen