The lovely, evocative titles of the British song cycles Elisabeth Lutyens' And Suddenly it's Evening and
David Bedford's Music for Albion Moonlight create expectations of nocturnal serenity that are contradicted by the pieces themselves, both the texts and the music. Lutyens' texts, by Salvatore Quasimodo, and
Bedford's, by
Kenneth Patchen, are disturbing, anguished, gruesome, or bitterly resigned, and in each case, the composer matches them with music that's entirely appropriate, and which is therefore far from the pastoral calm the titles suggest. Both pieces were written in the mid-'60s and are in many ways characteristic of the academic serialism that dominated "serious" music of that era, exquisitely colorful handling of orchestration and textures, spiky harmonies, disjunct melodies, and text setting that treats the singer instrumentally rather than vocally. Lutyens asks the singer primarily to sing and speak, but
Bedford's also calls for extended vocal techniques, such as screaming into the open piano. Each work is a skillful, inventive example of the 1960s serial aesthetic and should appeal to fans of that brand of modernism. Lutyens' Quincunx, has a more immediately appealing surface, with vocal lines that are elegant and lyrical. The
BBC Symphony, conducted by
Norman del Mar and
John Carewe, plays with meticulous attention to detail, and it's hard to know whether it's the carefulness of their performances or the character of the pieces themselves that fail to generate much heat. Of the soloists,
Jane Manning is a standout in the
Bedford. She was at the top of her form when these recordings were made in 1969 and 1970; her ability to make musical sense of the thorny material and her technical assurance make for a remarkable performance.