This is a stunning performance of a rarely performed and challenging work from a crossroads in the composer's life. Having a pacifist stance but knowing that, due to delicate health he would never be "called up", Britten was on edge about friends who would or who would volunteer. He had done a lot of documentary work with Auden for the GPO and other state agencies in which he put his modernism as it were 'on trial' and it clashed with his love of early English music, which would more deeply explore later. Much of this was church music yet Britten always maintained that he was not especially religious. Getting to grips with the dynamic poetry of Hopkins, a Jesuit, seems to have been something bound to happen but he was criticized by some for using the words but not expressing the faith of the poet. As it happened, BB had the right instincts given that Hopkins separated the two 'things' as much as he could yet ineluctably could not escape his faith in among his wonder at the world as created and what men did to it. Here is a big clue as to why the composer, finding his own full voice in his late 20s, set Hopkins when he did. He did not set Hopkins again, nor did he give an Op. # to this important piece yet quoted from it in later works, notably in the 'War Requiem' but also in some operatic motifs. With tours of the USA pending and contracted, BB expected to be away from England for about 2 years and was set to lodge with Auden and Isherwood initially then potential patrons and Aaron Copland in an academic semester. He left England during the "phony war" period but when attacks on England began tried to cut short commitments and return home. By 1940 he was professionally and personally involved with Peter Pears and Pears' contracts in operas led to tours as a duo after Auden tried to 'manage' the composer towards a performing career and to follow the same political beliefs which Auden had. Britten was too English to see himself as a modernist European composer, hence some of the works composed in 1940 and 1941 -- some at sea on various working small supply boats/ships in the high north Atlantic because the British and Canadian governments had kept small vessels away from convoy lanes. The journey was slow and hazardous in mainly Danish waters until the dash from the Faroes to Scotland. While staying with Copland 'AMDG' was performed and puzzled critics. It makes much more sense as a stand alone work from a tense time and its flavour is mainly tense and uneasy but with harmonies heard again in several other works over many years. The closest in genre is the St Cecilia Hymn and some of the glissando humor appears in Ceremony of Carols and Peter Grimes, the first Act of which was through scored on the Atlantic journey. BB had sea-going skills and helped with navigation and ice soundings. Pears was not skilled so was a deck hand. After 1976 he wrote that BB was sailing or composing and could get by on 4 hours sleep or less. This had health consequences but BB told Imogen Holst that during that frantic time he had decided to put composing first and performing would have to wait. While context can be useful in the lives of some composers it must not take attention from a given work and 'AMDG' rewards with careful listening. Performed as magnificently as here no more need be said.
So beautiful!!! Have sung this in my college choir and have already tried to find the performance of this piece on RU-vid for a long time. So glad it’s here
The truth and beauty of this song comes from simple, vulnerable nothing left at the end of life..this treatment is nothing short of indulgent human behavior - clever yes, but contrived. You can't change it...thats the point...It was already perfect........He doesn't change. Ya went to music school/get it but this is just wrong....Version at loggerheads with the SOUL of this piece and what it represents...total miss-application and treatment.....so you will think/sing like that when you are knocking on heavens door?..............Its a micro climate interpretation, one that misses the crux of this soul claiming honest reveal of human frailty...tinseled up....its a clash. Don't do it!!!!!!!!!! It was simple... leave it... It was close to perfection on Earth..This is borderline Jazz and yes that is also out of context.
BRAVO, NOTUS! Thank you for taking on this work and bringing it to life so captivatingly! Miggi: huge, huge congratulations on this performance. I am a VERY happy composer today--what an honor to have musicians of this caliber singing my work. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
My ears are drawn directly into the centre of the sound of these amazing voices. Mask-wearing is a sign of the times. Good on you! I sing in a community choir and we, too, are wearing masks during rehearsals and performances. Just to be able to make music with other human beings again is a gift to be respected.
Quite impressive ! Baritone soloist superb! Conductor energetic and inspiring and orchestra sensational! Been a very long time since my choral days in college and I have to wonder, were we this level good? Bravo❣️
