Naxos
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings; Nocturne; Phaedra
About This Album
This solid reissue, one of many that Naxos has salvaged from Collins Classics, presents three of Benjamin Britten's orchestral song cycles: the well-known Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, the Nocturne, and the dramatic cantata Phaedra, composed in 1975, not long before the composer's death. All three are conducted by the veteran Steuart Bedford, whose feel for Britten's music is unsurpassed, and sung with great insight by Philip Langridge and Ann Murray.

Langridge's Serenade is penetrating, and in most ways it surpasses the now aged recording that Peter Pears made with the composer conducting: there is more expressive variety, and Britten's musical gestures are brought into stronger relief than they were with Pears' occasionally lackadaisical delivery. The frenzied runs on "excellently bright" that close Ben Jonson's "Hymn" are both clearer and more motivated in Langridge's hands, just as slower songs like "Elegy" are more sustained, and therefore more serious. The only important flaw is Langridge's audible struggles with the unforgivingly high repeated phrases of "Dirge," which leave him sounding ragged and pushed beyond his limits.
Track List

Serenade, For Tenor, Horn & Strings, Op. 31
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Nocturne, For Tenor, 7 Instruments & Strings, Op. 60
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Phaedra, Dramatic Cantata For Mezzo-soprano, String Orchestra, Percussion & Harpsichord, Op. 93
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