It would not come as a surprise to learn that the very comparable recital by Philip Langridge, John Constable and Timothy Walker (L'Oiseau-Lyre 11/76) had been scheduled for reissue in this Tippett celebration year. For the present this new issue stands alone, filling an important gap in the catalogue and doing so with distinction. It is remarkable how the voices of earlier singers cling to this music: I can still hear Pears, Tear and Langridge—and just as surely from now on will hear Martyn Hill.
The two longest works—the cantata Boyhood's End and song-cycle The Heart's Assurance—challenge the musicianship and sensitivity of singer and pianist alike. Boyhood's End (1943), a setting of prose that is never prosaic, shows the ecstasy of Midsummer Marriage to be already within the system, and the profusion of notes has to be mastered so that the dance shall seem as delicate and natural as graceful improvisation. In The Heart's Assurance (1951) the spirit is similar though the technical accomplishment of all concerned, composer and performers, is heightened. For the singer, in addition to fearsome difficulties of pitch and rhythm, there is likely to be some problem of tessitura, particularly in the third of the songs, ''Compassion''. For the pianist, concentration has to be divided between the virtuosic writing of his own part and responsiveness to the singer, his notes, words and expression. Martyn Hill and Andrew Ball are wonderfully at one in all this, and the balancing of voice and piano has been finely achieved. The Songs for Achilles, with guitar, also convey a sense of ardent improvisation, and the voice rings out freely. The Songs for Ariel, which I have sometimes found faintly embarrassing, here work their natural magic.
Tippett's affinities with Purcell are felt at one time or another in most of these compositions starting indeed with the opening of the programme, the setting of Shelley's Sleep, originally a choral piece but, as Meirion Bowen suggests in his notes probably more practicable as a solo. It is good also to have the Purcell 'realizations' included. I wish the florid passages in these might at least sometimes have been sung legato, but there is much beauty—ravishingly so in ''Sweeter than roses'' which is placed as an apt and lovely pendant to Boyhood's End. The recording is issued to mark the composer's ninetieth birthday, a most touching and eloquent tribute.'