Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
I wonder as I wander
The Salley Gardens
Little Sir William
The Bonny Earl o'Moray
O can ye sew cushions?
The trees they grow so high
The Ash Grove
Oliver Cromwell
The Crocodile
Greensleeves
The Holly and the Ivy
La Noël passée
Voici le printemps
Fileuse
Le roi s'en va-t'en chasse
La belle est au jardin d'amour
Il est quelqu'un sur terre
Eho! Eho!
Quand j'étais chez mon père
The Plough boy
There's none to soothe
Sweet Polly Oliver
The Miller of Dee
The foggy, Foggy Dew
The Stream in the Valley
O Waly, Waly
Come you not from Newcastle?
Pray goody
The Deaf Woman's Courtship
Rich and rare
Dear Harp of my Country!
The last rose of Summer
O the sight entrancing
Sail on, sail on
How sweet the answer
The Minstrel Boy
Oft in the stilly night
Soldier, won't you marry me?
The Brisk young Widow
Sally in our Alley
The Lincolnshire Poacher
Early one morning
Ca'the yowes
Tom Bowling
Dink's Song

Mark Milhofer, ténor
Marco Scolastra, piano

Ces Folks Songs que Benjamin Britten composa tout au long de sa carrière de compositeur pour raviver son inspiration et alimenter ses programmes de concerts avec le fidèle Peter Pears ont déjà fait l'objet d'enregistrements notables. Britten lui-même en a gravé quelques-unes aux cotés de Pears et l'ensemble du recueil a été enregistré chez Naxos par Philip Langridge, Thomas Allen et Felicity Lott sous la direction du pianiste Graham Johnson. Sans oublier l'équipe Martineau (Hypérion) et les duos Tear/ Ledger et Esswood/ Griffett eux aussi indissociables de ce répertoire anglo-saxon. Aux côtés du pianiste Marco Scolastra qui s'acquitte avec une aimable efficacité de sa partie, le ténor anglais Mark Milhofer (plutôt vu à l'opéra) déploie une stupéfiante palette d'expressions et d'affects, tour à tour tendre, brutal, comique, gouailleur...etc, frôlant parfois l'expressionnisme comme s'il cherchait vainement la scène et le public. Le timbre est sensuel et agréable, l'articulation toujours soignée. Même si l'on peut regretter quelques artifices çà et là, on retrouve ces mêmes qualités vocales et notamment cette faculté d'articuler dans les chansons françaises travaillées par Britten où le ténor s'avère particulièrement à l'aise. Un must-have qui complète sans démériter les références déjà citées. (Jérôme Angouillant)

It was probably Peter Pears, Britten’s partner in music and life, who drew the composer’s attention to the rich heritage of English folksong and its attractions, as a way to introduce texture, variety and a lighter tone to their song recitals together during the 1940s. According to the tenor, Britten ‘wanted to recreate these melodies with their texts for concert performance, to make them art-songs … he therefore takes the tune as if he had written it himself and thinks himself back as to how he would turn it into a song.’ Thus the piano parts are no mere accompaniments but highly wrought, deftly illustrative comments on the texts and stories of love and country life. In cases such as The Foggy, Foggy Dew and O Waly, Waly, Britten’s arrangements have become better known than any ‘original’ version; they have assumed the identity of the song in the popular imagination, and the distinctive voice of Pears singing them imprinted itself on the imaginations of countless music-lovers in the second half of the last century. However, the songs retain their place in the concert repertoire of many young singers, often as more than encore material, and they admit a rich variety of interpretative approaches. The tenor Mark Milhofer has previously taken part in Brilliant Classics surveys of the complete song output of Alban Berg (95549) and Francesco Tosti (Vol.1 – 95201), with the Berg attracting particularly enthusiastic praise: ‘Totally absorbing… convincingly performed from the first note to the last. Each performer brings sincerity and enthusiasm to this varied repertoire. The recording is ideal’ (MusicWeb International). To this repertoire he brings a native facility and familiarity with the texts, and a keen sympathy also at work in his booklet essay for the collection. He began his musical career as a Choral Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, but subsequently became a student of Renata Scotto and Leyla Gencer in Rome; a vocal versatility which is ideally suited to Britten’s song-writing.