In my review of James Newby’s recital disc ‘Fallen to Dust’, I said that one of my favourite baritones was John Shirley-Quirk and here I get a chance to explain why.
Shirley-Quirk, even though he began singing professionally relatively late, had a long and distinguished career. His voice is instantly recognizable: rich, resonant but rather ‘covered’ with some nasal overtones. His vocal range was quite wide – he had Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ in his repertoire but was more generally associated with the standard British oratorio programme, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn (he was a noted Elijah), Elgar, Delius, (he was bass soloist in the first recording the ‘Requiem’), Walton and, of course Britten, with whom he was particularly associated.
Shirley-Quirk was active on the opera stage, where his roles included Don Giovanni, The Count (Marriage of Figaro), Golaud, Pizarro, Wozzeck and Bluebeard, but he’ll be best remembered for his performances and recordings of Britten’s operas, the three Church Parables, (‘Curlew River’, ‘The Burning Fiery Furnace’ and ‘The Prodigal Son’), ‘The Rape of Lucretia’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Owen Wingrave’ and, perhaps most notably, the seven baritone parts in Britten’s last opera ‘Death in Venice’. Poignantly, his last operatic appearance was in the small role of Konrad Nachtigall in ‘Die Meistersinger’ for Scottish Opera at the Edinburgh Festival when he was well into his 70s.
I find Shirley-Quirk’s voice very beautiful – a noble, grave sound, instantly recognizable – but I know others disagree. It is hardly an original observation to say that any reaction to a singing voice is highly subjective; I love the singing of Peter Pears and Pierre Bernac, and yes, I find their singing beautiful, but many would have the completely opposite view. Likewise some singers, who have a huge following, leave me absolutely cold – more of that below.
Shirley-Quirk was also a notable recitalist and his discography here is gratifyingly extensive, encompassing Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, Berlioz, Lutoslawski and, of course, Britten, amongst others. But I am going to concentrate on three recordings of English song he made early in his career.
Anyone of my generation who collected classical LPs will be familiar with the ‘Saga’ label, which provided a treasure trove of budget recordings for the impecunious (or merely discerning) collector. I was surprised to see that ‘Saga’ has its own Wikipedia page and this makes fascinating reading; the number of other budget labels ‘Saga’ spawned is staggering.
The three recordings I’ll consider are ‘Songs of Travel’ (1963), ‘Songs of John Ireland’ (1963) and ‘John Shirley-Quirk – Purcell, Butterworth, Humfrey, Moeran’ (1966). Judging by the number of second-hand copies available on E-Bay and elsewhere, these recordings were very popular. I bought all three in a WH Smith in Swansea around 1967; they were at ‘knock-down’ prices and I was delighted with my bargains. They remained favourite recordings of mine until I replaced them with a double CD (Heritage Records – HTGCD 283/4).
The ’Songs of Travel’ features a young JS-Q in profile on the cover – there is no denying he has a notably noble nose and that probably contributed to his unique sound… I learnt Vaughan Williams ‘Songs of Travel’ from this LP, just as a younger generation would have referenced Bryn Terfel’s recording and present-day baritones probably have Roderick Williams as a go-to. The Terfel recording is wonderful, but I am still drawn to the earlier recording (the first to feature the Epilogue ‘I have trod the upward and the downward slope.’) as for ‘Roddy’ Williams, see my comments on the John Ireland recording. Radio 3’s Record Review ‘Building a Library’ recommended the Terfel recording and was shamefully dismissive of JS-Q – the reviewer was WRONG in my not so humble opinion.
JS-Q sings ‘Songs of Travel’ beautifully, with delightful variety of tone-colour and keen response to the poems set. And what effective texts they are! Robert Louis Stevenson is better known as a prose writer but his poems here are wonderfully atmospheric: take, for example, ‘Bright is the Ring of Words’ with the moving conclusion,
Low as the singer lies in the fields of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring the swains together,
And when the west is red with the sun-set embers,
The lover lingers and sings, and the maid remembers.
Vaughan Williams responds throughout the cycle with unfailing inspiration and taste – this is a true marriage of words and music, rivalling Schubert. JS-Q is the perfect advocate.
For the rest, this recital is a very much a ‘greatest hits’ of the early to mid 20th century English song repertoire. Stanford is represented by two of his ‘Songs of the Sea’ ‘Drake’s Drum’ and ‘The Old Superb’, sung with virile tone and stirring commitment; there is more Vaughan Williams with ‘Linden Lea’ and ‘Silent Noon’ (if there is a better version of the latter I have not heard it); I feel the same about John Ireland’s ‘Sea Fever’ (incidentally, in common with a lot of songs popular with tyro singers, this is very difficult!) Frederick Keel’s ‘Trade Winds’ falls gracefully on the ear and the recording ends with Peter Warlock’s rollocking ‘Captain Stratton’s Fancy’, proving that JS-Q could rollock with the best of them: ‘For mouths were made for tankards and for sucking at the bung!’ is delivered with real zest. Throughout, Viola Tunnard is a superb accompanist. She deserves her moment in the spot-light.
Viola Tunnard is a very important figure in the history of mid - 20th century English classical music. She worked closely with Benjamin Britten, particularly on the preparation of his Three Church Parables, and was accompanist for Peter Pears and Joyce Grenfell (!) as well as JS-Q. She was also the first accompanist for The Philharmonia Chorus. I shall write about her at greater length in a future post.
The second recording I shall consider is ‘A Recital of English Songs: Purcell, Butterworth, Humfrey and Moeran’. Here the accompanist is Martin Isepp, another very influential figure in the English musical scene from the early 1960’s until his death in 2011. As well as working with JS-Q, he accompanied Janet Baker in another important Saga recording of English Song. Also playing on this recording are the splendidly named Ambrose Gauntlett (he was Principal double bass with the BBC Symphony Orchestra but also a pioneering viola de gamba player which is his instrument here) and the husband and wife violinists, Nona Liddell and Ivor McMahon.
The most substantial Purcell work here is the secular cantata, ‘When Night her Purple Veil has Softly Spread’ (realization by Benjamin Britten). Britten arranged this superb work (which might, in fact, be by Purcell’s brother Daniel) for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and the great German baritone’s recording is well worth hearing, but JS-Q sings sublimely, encompassing the violently shifting moods of the narrative with supreme artistry. The other Purcell songs are also sung well, as is Pelham Humfrey’s ‘greatest hit’ ‘Hymn to God the Father’, a setting of John Donne in punning mode (When thou hast Donne, thou hast not done). Two sets of settings of poems from A.E. Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’ complete the recording. George Butterworth’s brilliant collection ‘Six Songs From A Shropshire Lad’ has received some wonderful performances, notably from Bryn Terfel, but JS-Q more than holds his own; ‘The Lads in Their Hundreds’ for example, is all the more effective for its comparative reticence, while the masterpiece, ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ finds our singer fully involved with the gradual unfurling of the story of the betrayal of a dead man by his best friend. JS-Q’s differentiation between the dead and living voices is masterly.
The other songs are quite rare. E.J. Moeran’s settings of Housman are far less familiar than Butterworth’s but are well worth getting to know. Most interesting is Moeran’s setting of ‘Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree’ which is gloomy even by Housman standards:
"Farewell to barn and stack and tree, Farewell to Severn shore. Terence, look your last at me, For I come home no more. "The sun burns on the half-mown hill, By now the blood is dried; And Maurice amongst the hay lies still And my knife is in his side. "My mother thinks us long away; 'Tis time the field were mown. She had two sons at rising day, To-night she'll be alone. "And here's a bloody hand to shake, And oh, man, here's good-bye; We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake, My bloody hands and I. "I wish you strength to bring you pride, And a love to keep you clean, And I wish you luck, come Lammastide, At racing on the green. "Long for me the rick will wait, And long will wait the fold, And long will stand the empty plate, And dinner will be cold."
In Moeran’s hands, this becomes a mini verismo opera – very compelling – even though Moeran does not set stanzas four and five. JS-Q is fully up to its demands – his blanched tone on the final line is suitably chilling…
But my main review is of JS-Q’s LP devoted to the songs of John Ireland (1879-1962). Ireland was a complex character. Probably a repressed homosexual he was married briefly to a 17 year old pupil Dorothy Phillips. It seems the marriage was never consummated, and it was dissolved after less than two years. Ireland taught composition at The Royal College of Music, where he himself had been taught by Stanford and his pupils included E.J. Moeran, Geoffrey Bush, Alan Bush and Benjamin Britten. Britten later described Ireland as having ‘a strong personality but a weak character’ and while Britten’s diary entries contain enthusiastic references to Ireland’s teaching (BB’s mentor Frank Bridge was keen his genius protégé study with Ireland) he was, at times, disgusted by Ireland’s personal habits; the older man sometimes missed lessons because he was drunk or hung-over, and on one notorious occasion, urinated on his living room carpet in front of his fastidious pupil. Britten also claimed that Ireland had once made a pass at him. Despite this, they kept in touch, Ireland sending Britten admiring letters after the premieres of some works by the latter, notably ‘Billy Budd’, while, for his part, Britten asked his partner, Peter Pears, to be kind to Ireland while the tenor was recording some of his songs for the BBC, accompanied by the composer.
Ireland was a significant figure in British musical life. His two violin sonatas made his reputation which was cemented by his Piano Concerto (1930). He wrote widely across the disciplines (although never wrote a symphony) and apart from the works already mentioned was probably best known for his church music, including the hymn ‘My Song is Love Unknown’, ‘The Holy Boy’ (originally for piano but then arranged for voice and other chamber combinations) and, above all, the song ‘Sea Fever’. In the 1930s ‘Sea Fever’ was voted the most popular song, of any genre, broadcast on the BBC and must have been recorded hundreds of times (by Paul Robeson for one). As I mention above JS-Q’s recording on his ‘Songs of Travel’ LP is unsurpassed in my view, but this later recording of some of Ireland’s less well-known songs (which is to say the vast majority that are not ‘Sea Fever’) is of immense value.
To give some examples, ‘Spring Sorrow’ (Rupert Brook) and ‘The Heart’s Desire’ (A.E. Housman) are both lyrical, melancholy outpourings of frustrated lives (which Ireland’s almost certainly was) but ‘Great Things’ (Thomas Hardy) and ‘I Have Twelve Oxen’ (Anon) show Ireland in a far more positive mood. ‘Songs Sacred and Profane’ are thoughtful settings of contrasting poems, with a particularly fine response to W.B. Yeats ‘The Salley Gardens’. But for me, the crowning glory of Ireland’s song output are the ‘Five Poems of Thomas Hardy’. These magnificent settings are intensely serious responses to intensely serious poetry and Ireland’s undemonstrative but eloquent chromaticism puts me in mind of Hugo Wolf. JS-Q and his accompanist, Ireland specialist Eric Parkin are superb throughout, with the fourth song, ‘The Tragedy of that Moment’, reaching heights of expression only achieved by the finest composers and the finest interpreters.
The tragedy of that moment
Was deeper than the sea,
When I came in that moment
And heard you speak to me!
What I could not help seeing
Covered life as a blot;
Yes, that which I was seeing,
And knew that you were not!
JS-Q out-shines all his competitors here, in particular the ubiquitous Roderick Williams, who offers beautiful tone in these songs but little evidence of deeper understanding. Here, as elsewhere, I find him bland. Now, ‘Roddy’ is an intelligent and thoughtful individual so he obviously does ‘understand’ but connecting that understanding to the vocal mechanism is a gift – it can’t be taught. JS-Q has that gift…
My disparaging of a national treasure would probably elicit hate-mail if my blog was disseminated further afield than my friends and family (I may still get hate-mail from some of them – who knows?) but RW’s reputation is hardly likely to suffer because of me.
So a few final words. If I were any god of power, the recordings I have discussed would be compulsory listening for all students of singing at all conservatoires in Britain and America. As object lessons in vocal communication they are unsurpassed.
And a brief personal note – in the early 1980s I sang Demetrius in a production of Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Brunel University. JS-Q had had an important role in helping to found Brunel (he taught chemistry there) and was of course invited to a performance. He attended, despite the recent death of his first wife, and came round to see the cast at the end. He was charming and generous, particularly to the colleague singing Theseus (JS-Q’s role in the first recording). A lovely man and a great, great singer.
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