Britten's AMDG
Britten's AMDG
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with Choral Dances from ‘Gloriana’. Chorale after an Old French Carol. Five Flower Songs, Op 47. A Hymn to the Virgin. Sacred and Profane, Op 91
Polyphony / Stephen Layton
Hyperion CDA67140 (61' · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
The programme is delightful and the choir excellent. AMDG presents as formidable a challenge to its singers as any of Britten’s compositions for unaccompanied choir. In fact that’s sometimes suggested as the reason why, having written it for an expert group in 1939 and realising that its chances of frequent performance were slim, Britten never prepared the work for publication. It’s a pity he couldn’t have heard Stephen Layton’s Polyphony! Even more than the Finzi Singers, their predecessors on record, they’ve worked it into the system so that they have the sense of it clearly in their mind and can make the word-setting fresh and spontaneous. ‘God’s Grandeur’ (allegro con fuoco) has the fire: the Finzis seem almost cautious by comparison. In ‘The Soldier’ Polyphony catch the swing of the triplets and dotted notes with more panache and make more of the words. They also bring out the tender lyricism in ‘Prayer II’ and grasp more decisively the con moto, vivace and avanti! markings in ‘O Deus, ego amo te’.
In the Five Flower Songs Polyphony have a young tone and their numbers allow them to convey a sense of round-the-table intimacy. In the Choral Dances from Gloriana, Polyphony improve on the Finzi Singers’ performance with crisper rhythms and a clearer acoustic. Sacred and Profane, like AMDG a work for virtuosos, is given with wonderful confidence and imagination. A wonderful disc.
