Swedish guitarist Georg Gulyás attracted my attention in my reviews of his previous excellent recordings for the Proprius label (e.g. Albeniz, Ponce, Tarrega - Gulyás and Bach - Gulyás). Now a guitarist of worldwide demand, he is currently Senior Lecturer at Karstad University. He returns to Proprius with a disc of Benjamin Britten's works for voice and guitar, a part of Britten's output that is unknown to many of his fans.

Britten had a remarkable "feel" for instruments. Having decided to take a new one into his compositional range, he entered an intense period of study of what the possibilities of the subject were, and prepared in detail to use the instrument in new pieces. He couldn't play the guitar himself, but in his 20 minute solo 'Nocturnal' on this disc, its dedicatee and première player Julian Bream was astonished to find only one unplayable chord in the MS. It was Bream who steered Britten away from the lute, which was connected with Dowland (one of Britten's greater provider of inspiration), by suggesting a guitar accompaniment for his 'Songs for the Chinese' Op. 58 (1957). Next, Volume 6 for Britten's series of English Folksongs (published 1961) arrived, for high voice (Peter Pears) with guitar accompaniment. Then Bream asked Britten for a solo piece, which resulted in 'Nocturnal' (1963). This formidable solo has now become regarded world-wide as one of the most influential of twentieth century pieces for the classical guitar.

In Britten's time, performances of the two sets of songs with guitar accompaniment would have been with his partner Peter Pears. Although many recordings of similar programmes also use a tenor, the scores are marked with "high voice". Thus Gulyás has elected to partner with a mezzo-soprano. German mezzo Ivonne Fuchs was trained in the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. She won a Birgit Nilsson scholarship and now is much in demand for operatic rôles. Her English pronunciation is very good and despite a reverberant venue one can easily hear the texts which she sings (all of which are printed in English in the disc's booklet).

Britten's interest in Chinese poetry mirrors that of Mahler - evident in the latter's Das Lied von der Erde. Six poems chosen by Britten were translated into English by Arthur Waley. They are philosophical subjects; statements about life, especially the transience of youth and beauty. Fuchs beautifully captures their intents with a variety of tone colours to which Gulyás responds by underpinning with harmonic chords, giving empathetic and subtle support.

The Sixth Volume of English Folksongs (Published 1961) comprises six songs from various English Counties. They all have strong and memorable melodies and deal with love, satire, morals and social frustration. Britten, now more experienced with the guitar, provides richer comments to Fuch's vivid characterisations, and together they bring the essence of English folksong to their amusing and informed performance. Almost as a sudden thought, the very popular "Foggy, Foggy Dew" from Arrangements Vol. 3 has been added, but with the piano part transcribed for guitar, most effective.

The solo guitar piece which I have already mentioned grew from John Dowland's song "Come, Heavy Sleep", a piece of heart-stopping emotional depth, ending with the line:
"O come, sweet Sleep, or I die for ever;
Come ere my last sleep comes, or come never".
This song is delivered by Gulyás and Fuchs with all the respect and understanding it deserves, before the amazing piece for solo guitar which inspired Britten to write 'Nocturnal' ends the recording.

In 'Nocturnal After John Downland' Op. 70, there are 9 sections dealing with the themes of night, death, sleep and dreams. It is an inverted set of variations, with the theme (from Dowland's Come Heavy Sleep) at the end. The themes are: Musingly, Very Agitated, Restless, Uneasy, March-like, Dreaming, Gently Rocking, Passacaglia, Slow and Quiet. All these are depicted vividly with just about every technique available on the guitar - scale and arpeggio sequences, complex five-part chords, pizzicato and tremolando. I was enthralled by Gulyás' wonderful technique, his understanding of the dramatic progress of the sections and his convincing portraiture overall of Dowland's desperate desire for sleep - or Death.

The venue for this recording was the minimalist Petrus Church (1962), Danderyd, just north of Stockholm, which has a lively reverberance in acoustics that have drawn many recording teams, including BIS as well as Proprius. In the 5.0 multichannel there is plenty of sound from the back of the church in the rear channels, and the rich church sound is quite enfolding for the song cycles, where the singer and guitarist are somewhat distant, but not enough to blur Fuchs' articulation. For the solo, the guitar is brought well forward with a wonderfully detailed sound picture of the instrument, all the tonal and textural changes in the virtuoso playing clearly captured. Even the sound of skin on string is portrayed convincingly. Stereo is very good but the church background is less prominent.

Britten is much saluted here by Georg Gulyás and Ivonne Fuchs, and their varied programme provides much interest and entertainment. Highly recommended.

Copyright © 2016 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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