ALAN BUSH
To all a future world may hold
The Artsong Collective
Recorded 1999/2000
MUSAEUS MZCD102
[61']
Musaeus
Half the total output of songs written by Alan Bush (1900-1995) feature here
on this third disc to come from The Artsong Collective (a name of which this
fervent communist would surely have heartily approved). Indeed it was the
group's intention to celebrate Bush's 95th birthday but the event
regrettably became a concert in memoriam. Like Tippett after him, Bush was
not only concerned for his fellow man, but also for their musical education
and experience, the Workers' Music Association (over which he presided for
nearly half a century) a useful vehicle for his choral output between the
wars. He was, despite frequent periods of ostracism brought upon him by his
political convictions (all his operas have been staged in East Germany, none
professionally in the UK), an intensely humane and selfless man, and above
all a highly respected teacher for over half a century at the Royal Academy
of Music in London (and he was also no mean pianist).
Four song cycles, one for each voice and written between 1953 and 1977, feature
here. The first is a brief one called 'Woman's Life' to words by his wife
Nancy, and is virtually a protest song sung here with keen fervour by the
(sometimes hard-edged sounding) soprano Moira Harris. In the second, a group
of four traditional Seafarers' Songs, the ex-tenor now baritone Paul Wilson
is occasionally fully stretched but always in character and stylish in these
wittily charming songs. Harris and Wilson fared better in the Hampshire church
of East Woodhay, where this was recorded, than the revelatory Phillida Bannister.
She has a lovely creamy mezzo (the vibrato fast with a hint of Ferrier in
the sound) which needed more forward balance, but nevertheless this is a
really impressive voice which does full justice to the intense beauty of
the four songs in the third cycle 'Life's span' to texts by either Nancy
Bush or C Day Lewis. The final cycle, 'Voice for Prophets' written for Pears
in 1953, is delivered with impeccable diction by the tenor Wills Morgan,
while accompanying all four singers is the meticulously stylish Richard Black,
whose clarity of articulation and technical facility throughout is admirable.
For those unacquainted with the music of the neglected Alan Bush this is
an excellent introduction and a commendable tribute to the work of The Artsong
Collective.
Christopher Fifield
Performance
Recording
