Two Views of Britten's 'Ceremony of Carols'

Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten wrote his A Ceremony of Carols in 1942, for boys' voices and harp. Today we have two recordings of this gorgeous work, from two distinguished choirs - the women's voices of the Robert Shaw Chorale and the Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge.

The St. John's Choir, led by George Guest, also includes Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb and Missa Brevis. Shaw fills out his disc - or rather leads it - with Poulenc's Mass in G.

The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge

Britten had a well-known antipathy for the cultured singing such as produced the more famous ensemble at Cambridge, the Choir of King's College Chapel. (That did not deter King's from recording the work, however.)

The critic Edward Greenfield characterized the singing of the Københavns Drengekor, which the composer conducted in a 1953 recording, as "tough." He was, however, impressed with the St. John's version: "[T]ime after time in my comparisons I have been delighted by the extra responsiveness of the St. John’s singing. The Danish boys may just outshine St. John’s in the jazzy rhythms of 'Deo Gracias' or in the Orff-like narration of the same carol, but the word-pointing and the contrasts of tone and dynamic are far better controlled throughout by the Cambridge boys and the crescendo at the end is over-whelming," he wrote in The Gramophone.

Britten may have been less pleased. The Decca Discography contains this parenthetical note: "Following publication, the composer requested a re-make of incorrect passages, which was done on 8 Aug 66 and that version was used for subsequent copies." I believe the transfer here is from the revised version. The original recording sessions were in December 1964.

George Guest

My own view is that this record is a fine achievement, not just for the Ceremony of Carols, but for the Missa Brevis and Rejoice in the Lamb. The Welsh conductor George Guest (1924-2002) led the St. John's Choir from 1951-91, greatly enhancing its international reputation.

Marisa Robles

I believe this may have been the first recording for the harpist Marisa Robles. Greenfield presciently predicted a great career for her, which has been the case.

This performance benefits from atmospheric stereo from St. John's.

LINK to the St. John's disc

The Robert Shaw Chorale

Robert Shaw must have liked A Ceremony of Carols. He recorded it twice for RCA Victor (in 1949 and 1964) and for Telarc (in 1997).

In 1949, Victor apparently did not have high hopes for the Britten work - the LP cover subordinates his composition to Poulenc's Mass in G.

Britten wrote A Ceremony of Carols for a boys' choir, but Shaw recorded it with six women's voices from his chorale. Not all critics were pleased. Irving Kolodin wrote in the Saturday Review, "1t is heartening to see the appreciation of a good work, such as Britten’s 'Ceremony of Carols,' implemented by the vast resources of publicity and distribution possessed by RCA Victor. It is less heartening to observe a treatment which accords with the great American penchant for expediency (that is to say, the use of an available women’s choir, rather than the more desirable boys’ voices)."

Seventy-five years later, it is possible to admire the artistry of these singers and their conductor, while also noting that the recording presents little of the atmosphere that can be found in the St. John's performance - the ceremonial aspect is missing.

Laura Newell

The harp in this performance is played by the versatile Laura Newell, who has been heard here before in Debussy and as a member of the swing group The New Friends of Rhythm.

Francis Poulenc

Poulenc's Mass in G was the subject of extravagant praise from the critics of the day. The American Record Guide was overwhelmed: "This Mass, stark, bare, unadorned as it may be, in the fifteen minutes duration is as filled with the distilled essence of devotion, of genuine religious feeling as any of the full-length scores of the classical or baroque periods. 1 know of no unaccompanied work in the modern idiom that can approach it; one would have to travel as back as Palestrina for serious competition." I mostly hear the stark, bare, unadorned aspect of the work, although it is earnest and well performed here.

Victor's sound is typical of the time - clear and not very atmospheric.

LINK to the Robert Shaw Chorale disc

Note: I have uploaded quite a few of Shaw's recordings in the past. You can find them here - including his 1946 and 1952 Christmas albums.

Gold and Fizdale Perform Bowles and Poulenc

The compositions of Paul Bowles have been presented here a few times, notably in an M-G-M LP combining his music with that of Peggy Glanville-Hicks.

In today's post, his work is mated with a composition by Francis Poulenc. The source is a Columbia LP presenting two works commissioned by duo-pianists Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale.

For this post, in addition to the LP, I've added an early Concert Hall 78 set containing a Bowles sonata, also written for and performed by Gold and Fizdale.

Bowles - A Picnic Cantata

The main work on the Columbia album is "A Picnic Cantata," Bowles' setting of a poem by his contemporary, James Schuyler.

Paul Bowles, 1946

In the poem, four women make plans for a picnic, drive to Hat Hill Park, discuss its namesake (Henry Hat), then look into the Sunday newspaper, particularly the garden section. The protagonists are in turn robotic and dreamy. ("We can't go on a picnic/without ketchup and a car./Have you got a car?/You are in my car./So we are.") In a droll turn, the most colorful section of the poem comes not from a description of the park but from reading an ad for flowers - "tulips in balanced color,/flame pink, shaded rose,/glowing orange, shaded yellow". Similarly, the sole conflict in the poem is found not among the participants but in the newspaper's advice column. The friends do become reflective on the way home - "Is the evening star/Venus or Mars?/I see it set/in the peal of the moon,/a bit of ice/in an iced-tea sky."

James Schuyler by Fairfield Porter

As you can tell, I am taken with the Schuyler poem, and the setting by Bowles is entirely apt. It's been said that the work was inspired by Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts, with libretto by Gertrude Stein, and there's that.

Gloria Davy as Aida

Bowles was a protégé of Thomson. The producers went so far as to cast three vocalists from the 1952 revival of Four Saints - sopranos Gloria Davy and Martha Flowers and contralto Gloria Wynder. The other singer was mezzo Mareda Gaither, who had recently been in Earl Robinson's Sandhog. Also participating in the recording was percussionist Al Howard.

The members of the vocal ensemble all had successful careers. Perhaps the most notable was Gloria Davy. In 1958, she was first Black artist to perform the role of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera. The download includes a lengthy New York Times obituary for her.

Poulenc - Sonata for Two Pianos (1953)

Francis Poulenc

Poulenc wrote two sonatas for duo pianists, among his many keyboard compositions. A Sonata for Piano Four Hands from 1918 had been recorded by Gold and Fizdale in 1953. This Sonata for Two Pianos, written in that same year, was commissioned for the pair.

A word about the artists: Arthur Gold (1917-90) and Robert Fizdale (1920-95) met at Juilliard and formed a lifelong partnership. They premiered a long list of works, including three by Poulenc and four by Bowles, as well as works by Germaine Tailleferre, Samuel Barber, John Cage and Vittorio Rieti.

Bowles - Sonata for Two Pianos

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, 1952

Among the works commissioned by Gold and Fizdale was the 1946-47 Sonata by Bowles. The transfer of this angular work comes from an early 78 rpm release on Concert Hall that I remastered from a lossless needle drop on Internet Archive. The sound is good enough, although there is some discoloration on the characteristically ringing tone of the pianists.

The download includes the usual restored front and back LP covers (with the text of "A Picnic Cantata"), label scans, photos and High Fidelity and Billboard reviews of the LP. I've also included an excellent New York Review of Books article, "So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?" by Hisham Aidi, which discusses the relation between Bowles and Tangier, where the composer-writer lived for many years. (The earlier post mentioned previously includes Peggy Glanville-Hicks' settings of Bowles' "Letters from Morocco.")

I do like the cover of the LP above, with all participants stuffed into a jitney for the trip to Hat Hill Park, except for the composer, who is buzzing by in a streamlined mini-car. I assume this signifies that Bowles was not on hand for the April 1954 recording session.