Britten: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake - Tit for Tat Roderick Williams & Iain Burnside

• Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
• 1 I. Proverb I: The pride of the peacock 01:19
• 2 II. London 02:22
• 3 III. Proverb II: Prisons are built 00:38
• 4 IV. The Chimney-Sweeper 02:18
• 5 V. Proverb III: The bird a nest 00:49
• 6 VI. A Poison Tree 04:34
• 7 VII. Proverb IV: Think in the morning 00:45
• 8 VIII. The Tyger 01:55
• 9 IX. Proverb V: The tygers of wrath 00:50
• 10 X. The Fly 01:55
• 11 XI. Proverb VI: The hours of folly 01:40
• 12 XII. Ah! Sun-flower! 03:11
• 13 XIII. Proverb VII: To see a World 00:48
• 14 XIV. Every Night and Every Morn 02:57
• 15 No. 1. A Song of enchantment 02:32
• 16 No. 2. Autumn 01:17
• 17 No. 3. Silver 01:32
• 18 No. 4. Vigil 01:35
• 19 No. 5. Tit for Tat 01:39
• 20 No. 1. The Plough Boy 01:43
• 21 No. 5. The Foggy, Foggy Dew 02:02
• 22 Tom Bowling and Other Song Arrangements: No. 1. Tom Bowling 04:27
• 23 Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 3, British Isles: No. 6. O Waly, Waly 03:17
• 24 No. 7. Oliver Cromwell 00:43
• 25 No. 6. The Ash Grove 02:23
• 26 No. 1. The Salley Gardens 02:28
• 27 Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 3, British Isles: No. 2. There's none to soothe 01:39
• 28 Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 1, British Isles: No. 2. Little Sir William 02:43
• 29 Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 5, British Isles: No. 5. Ca' the yowes 04:10
• Total Runtime 01:00:11

Info for Britten: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake - Tit for Tat

Britten wrote his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Op. 74 for the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1965. The singer admired the ‘concentration and enigmatic smile’ of the settings, and Britten constructed, through alternation of proverbs with songs, and an intense contemplation on the human and the eternal, one of his greatest song cycles. By contrast Tit for Tat sees Britten revisiting youthful, light-spirited settings of the poet Walter de la Mare. The folk-song arrangements are amongst his most famous, and beloved.

Britten’s song cycles are some of the greatest produced in the twentieth century. This disc focuses on his Blake cycle, one of his deepest and most contemplative. It’s contrasted with a very different and youthful cycle of five called Tit for Tat, written when he was a teenager.

The baritone Roderick Williams encompasses a wide repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital. His recital appearances have taken him to London’s Wigmore Hall and many European festivals. He has an extensive discography and his recordings of English song with Iain Burnside have received particular acclaim.

“Williams finds an ideal emotional stance - involved, totally word-conscious but never melodramatic...as a recorded recital, Williams - and Burnside, who is similarly colourful but keeps an interpretative distance from pumping up the text - have created an outstanding achievement.” (Gramophone Magazine)

“Williams's voice is lighter than Fischer-Dieskau's, but his response to the texts is so intense, so well judged that there is never a lack of authority. The juvenile Walter De la Mare settings of Tit for Tat provide the perfect foil, followed by some of Britten's best-known folksong arrangements, all beautifully delivered without a trace of archness.” (The Guardian)

“Williams brings a gentler, more intimate touch to what Fischer-Dieskau called their 'enigmatic smile': Blake's Tyger burns bright but with less fierce teeth, and there is more melancholy than menace in this performance's view of the human condition. Every beautifully placed word is matched by Iain Burnside's recreation of Britten's pianistic subtext, glinting with many a revealing musical gloss.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Roderick Williams, baritone
Iain Burnside, piano

Roderick Williams
encompasses a wide repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital. He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and is particularly associated with the baritone roles of Mozart. He has also sung world premières of operas by, among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel.

Roderick Williams sings concert repertoire with all the BBC orchestras, and many other ensembles including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment. He has worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Bach Collegium Japan, Tonkünstler Orchester, Cincinnati Symphony, Music of the Baroque Chicago, Virginia Arts Festival, San Francisco Symphony, Utah Symphony, amongst others. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms (including the Last Night in 2014), Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Melbourne.

He is an accomplished recital artist who can be heard at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, London Song Festival and the Musikverein, Vienna.

Roderick Williams is also a composer and has had works premièred at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. In April 2016 he was Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder and in May 2016 won the RPS Singer award. His numerous recordings include two of Albion Records’ earlier albums: ALB001 The Sky shall be our Roof and ALBCD002 Kissing her Hair.

Iain Burnside
is an acclaimed vocal accompanist. Artists with whom he has collaborated include Dame Margaret Price, Susan Chilcott, Galina Gorchakova, Ailish Tynan, Susan Bickley, Ann Murray, John Mark Ainsley, Roderick Williams and Bryn Terfel. His recordings straddle an exuberantly eclectic repertoire ranging from Beethoven to Judith Weir with a special place reserved for the highways and byways of English Song, as much praised CDs of Britten, Finzi, Ireland, Butterworth, Gurney, Parry and Vaughan Williams have all proved. Delphian has just released Burnside’s complete Rachmaninov songs with seven outstanding Russian artists. He also enjoys a close association with Rosenblatt Recitals, both on stage and in the studio, in collaboration with Opus Arte.

He is a Sony Award-winning broadcaster and a master programmer, curating various festivals and recital series. In association with London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Burnside has written a number of highly individual theatre pieces, performed at the Barbican Centre, Milton Court and the Cheltenham Festival. A Soldier and a Maker, based on the life of Ivor Gurney, has been commissioned as a radio play as part of the BBC’s World War One season. In demand as teacher and animateur, Burnside also works at the Royal Opera House and the National Opera Studio. He is International Visiting Artist at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.

Booklet for Britten: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake - Tit for Tat