Scottish folksong arrangements - English Songs
Dame Janet Baker mez Douglas Whittaker fl Yehudi Menuhin vn Ross Pople vc Ambrose Gauntlett vada Robert Spencer lte George Malcolm hpd/pf Martin Isepp hpd
Testament SBT1241 Buy now
(70’ · ADD · T/t)
Arne The Tempest – Where the bee sucks Beethoven Scottish Songs, Op 108 – No 5, The sweetest lad was Jamie; No 7, Bonnie laddie, highland laddie; No 20, Faithfu’ Johnie; WoO156 – Cease your funning; Polly Stewart Boyce Tell me lovely shepherd Campion Third Booke of Ayres – If thou long’st so much to learne; Never love unlesse you can; Oft have I sigh’d for him that heares me not. Fourth Booke of Ayres – Faine would I wed a faire young man Dowland The First Book of Songs or Ayres – Come againe Haydn Scottish Folksong Arrangements – I’m o’er young to marry yet; John Anderson; O can ye sew cushions; Sleepy Bodie; Up in the morning early; The White Cockade; The brisk young lad; O bonny lass; Duncan Gray; My boy Tammy; Shepherds, I have lost my love; Green grow the rashes; Love will find out the way; The birks of Abergeldie; My ain kind dearie; Cumbernauld House; Jamie come try me; The Flower of Edinburgh Monro My lovely Celia Purcell Lord, what is man?, Z192. Sleep, Adam, sleep and take thy rest, Z195
Recorded 1967.
‘A Pageant of English Song’ was Baker’s first solo LP for EMI. Side 1, in which she’s accompanied by Martin Isepp and Robert Spencer, is reissued on this CD. Side 2, with Gerald Moore at the piano, can be heard on a double CD on EMI. Dame Janet was at the beginning of the high summer of her career when this was recorded in 1967. Every recital, concert appearance or opera role was an event. In the first song, Dowland’s ‘Come againe’, each word is given the perfect weight, with beautiful touches on the repeated ‘I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die’. The jolly ‘Never love unlesse you can’, the melancholy ‘Oft have I sigh’d’ and the coquettish ‘Faine would I wed’ each has its own ‘face’, Baker finding just the right expression in her voice. The Scottish songs arranged by Haydn, recorded eight years later, seem rather slight in comparison. Nineteen of these arrangements one after another seem rather too much of a good thing.
The five Beethoven Scottish arrangements are the best part of the 1975 session. ‘Fathfu’ Johnnie’ is a setting to place beside any great song of the same period. The recording seems to favour the instrumentalists somewhat, whereas in the 1967 selections, Baker’s voice is always fresh and forward.
