Acclaim
Still Falls the Rain
Still falls the Rain
Britten: The Heart of the Matter, A Birthday Hansel, Canticle V, Folksongs
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Jennifer Montone, horn
Sivan Magen, harp
Alan Cumming, narrator
(AV 2258)
Still falls the Rain Britten: The Heart of the Matter, A Birthday Hansel, Canticle V, Folksongs Nicholas Phan, tenor Jennifer Montone, horn Sivan Magen, harp Alan Cumming, narrator (AV 2258)
Avie Records

Tenor Nicholas Phan follows up his Britten Winter Words album with Still Falls the Rain, a collection of works inspired by some of the composer’s dearest friends and musical collaborators. Myra Huang (piano), Jennifer Montone (horn), Sivan Magen (harp) and actor Alan Cumming (as narrator in The Heart of the Matter) are featured with Phan.


Britten’s musical collaborators were among the cream of the 20th English music crop that included Peter Pears (tenor), Dennis Brain (horn) and Osian Ellis (harp). That holy musical trinity is most closely associated with the music we have on this recording. Edith Sitwell was also a friend and it’s her poem about the 1940 London blitz Canticle III - Still Falls the Rain that’s the emotional core of this recording. The performance of Phan, Montone and Huang is stunning. It’s impossible to be unmoved by the clarity and emotional intensity of Phan’s singing. That hair-raising moment when he declaims “O ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune” is devastating.
The Canticle is placed as the seventh movement within the framework of the larger The Heart of the Matter, a nine movement setting of three additional Sitwell poem fragments. I think this might be the first time the work has been recorded in this form and it works brilliantly. Phan’s singing is electrifying, a wonderful marriage of drama and musicianship, and it’s impossible to resist the sheer beauty of his voice. Cumming (on hand to read some of the poems) is a model of restrained eloquence, and Montone’s playing is rich and full-toned while Huang is marvelously sensitive.

Britten’s voice and harp settings are inspired; the composer really understood the harp and how well it works with the voice. Britten’s settings of T.S. Eliot’s weird imagery in Canticle V – The Death of Saint Narcissus and the robust poetry of Robert Burns in A Birthday Hansel are truly marvelous. Sivan Magen draws so much color from his harp and his richly nuanced performance partners beautifully with Phan’s superb singing. If there is a voice and harp hall of fame somewhere, I think Magen and Phan’s performances of a set of folksong arrangements, particularly “She’s like the swallow,” earns them first ballot induction.

It’s so encouraging that young singers like Phan are performing repertoire that was “owned” for decades by tenor Peter Pears. Phan funded this recording with a Kickstarter campaign, if he decides to move ahead with more Britten he can count on my contribution.

Craig Zeichner, Ariama.com
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