Britten - Blues and Cabaret Songs; Cole Porter - Songs

Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)

Cole Albert PORTER (1891-1964)

Blues & Cabaret Songs

Jill Gomez (sopano)

Martin Jones (piano)

(4) Cabaret songs

When you're feeling like expressing your affection

On this Island, As it is, plenty

Johnson over Jordan

Paul Bunyan

On the Frontier, The clock on the wall gives an electric tick

This way to the Tomb

Paris, Let's do it

Gay Divorce, Night and Day

Leave it to Me, My Heart Belongs to Daddy

Miss Otis Regrets

Nymph Errant, The Physician

This record is destined, I would guess, to become a classic. Britten's cabaret songs were written for the singing actress Hedli Anderson, there were more than four, but these are the only ones to have seen publication so far. ''Tell me the truth about love'' and ''Johnnie'' were both recorded by Anderson with the composer at the piano in January 1939—the record was unissued and no copy is known to survive. Peter Pears sang ''Farewell Blues'' (''Stop all the clocks'', an Auden verse later set by Ned Rorem), and the more hectic 'railway' ''Calypso'' composed in America, but all these songs were generally forgotten until their publication in 1980. The texts by Auden are full of the spirit that William Coldstream described, writing about one of Anderson's performances, ''teaching of carefree lucidity and the non-avoidance of banality''. When you're feeling like expressing your affection which is published and performed here for the first time is one of the results of Auden and Britten's work for the GPO in the 1930s. Apart from the references to ''any telephone kiosk'' and ''Press button A'' it would still serve well as an encouragement to make use of the telephone. ''As it is, plenty'', the last song from On this Island, being also in the ironic popular-music style, rounds off the group nicely.

Jill Gomez's performances are perfect in every nuance, her beautiful tone, clear diction and just hinted-atirony, never overdoing it, give the songs the exact weight they need. The Cole Porter encores are fine, although ideally they need to be swung just a little more, and Gomez's exquisite phrasing of the seldom-heard opening verse to ''Let's do it'' is quite a revelation.

Daryl Runswick's arrangements of four Blues by Britten, three drawn from incidental music for theatre productions in London in the 1930s and one from the operetta Paul Bunyan make an enjoyable interlude. A quite delicious record.'