Britten: Winter Words (2011)

American tenor Nicholas Phan's first solo recital features two of Britten's most important song cycles and a handful of his folk song settings. Winter Words, eight settings of Thomas Hardy, dates from 1954, just before The Turn of the Screw, and it includes some of the composer's most distinctive and immediately appealing songs. Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo was one of the first works Britten wrote for Peter Pears, and the 1940 cycle one of his most vocally demanding compositions, so demanding that the singer postponed its ... Read More

American tenor Nicholas Phan's first solo recital features two of Britten's most important song cycles and a handful of his folk song settings. Winter Words, eight settings of Thomas Hardy, dates from 1954, just before The Turn of the Screw, and it includes some of the composer's most distinctive and immediately appealing songs. Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo was one of the first works Britten wrote for Peter Pears, and the 1940 cycle one of his most vocally demanding compositions, so demanding that the singer postponed its premiere a year while he honed his technique enough to master the songs. It's just about impossible, for better or for worse, to avoid comparisons of new performances with those of Pears, whose vocal idiosyncrasies played an important role in shaping the music itself. Phan's voice is ideal for Winter Words; it's significantly more substantial and robust than Pears' in its weight, resonance, and power, and it's no less expressive. He has a bright, ringing top that can soar when... Read Less