Music at Paxton: Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside

Paxton House 24/7/26

Roderick Williams baritone

Iain Burnside piano

I have known the distinguished English baritone, Roderick Williams, since the 1990s, when we performed Britten's 'Peter Grimes' together at the Endellion Festival in Cornwall, conducted by Richard Hickox. Since then, he has gone on to great things and is a frequent performer in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world. Tonight, he appeared at Music at Paxton in the Scottish Borders near Berwick with the excellent Iain Burnside as accompanist.

The theme of the recital was the influence firstly of the group of poets who thrived at the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire in the early years of the 20th century on English song composers and then, after the interval, on the influence of North American poets on English composers of the inter-war years of the 1920s and 30s. Now, this could have been an extremely stuffy and academic recital, with a whole bunch of unknown songs set to largely unknown poems. Fortunately we were in the hands of two masters, and it proved an absolutely riveting evening of music making.

Mr Williams is a terrific performer, introducing the songs with wit and erudition, and his voice is now at its peak at the age of 60. His warm, mellifluous baritone is perfect for this music and the high-lying tessitura of some of the songs held no terrors for him. Indeed, it is the top of his voice where he seems happiest, and some of his controlled high piano singing was stunning,revealing colours and nuances I haven't heard for a long time. Readers will know my love for the great German baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and I am happy to admit that some of Mr Williams' singing was on a par with DFD.

This repertoire is ideal for such a fine English baritone and much of it was written for that voice. As a bass, some 3 or so notes lower, I found almost all English song options were barred to me, and, for example, I could only sing Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel transposed down a tone! All this preamble is to say that we were lucky to hear this concert and I commend Music at Paxton for putting it on.

The first half consisted of groups of songs written by, perhaps, lesser known composers, but such was the artistry of Messrs Williams and Burnside, that they came over very well indeed. Highlights for me were John Ireland's setting of Rupert Brooke's 'Blow out, you Bugles' (a poignant cry of sorrow for the fallen of WW1) and two songs by the contemporary composer, Douglas Weiland, 'The Nightingale' (a charming evocation of that favourite poetic bird) and 'The Soldier', Brooke's majestic and much loved poem whose words "there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England", touch the hearts of all who hear them. The cruel fate that saw the poet killed by a septic mosquito bite en route to Gallipoli makes his war poetry even more touching and poignant,  and Weiland's setting did the words justice. The first half ended with a brilliant modern setting, by Anthony Payne, of Edward Thomas's evocative poem of a train journey, 'Adlestrop', and here the superb accompanying skills of Iain Burnside were much in evidence.

A relaxing glass of wine in the courtyard set us up for the second half, and some fun and games. We saw the focus shift somewhat across the Atlantic as our performers looked firstly at how English composers reacted to the poetry of Walt Whitman. As Mr Williams explained Vaughan Williams,Holst and Stanford wrote settings of Whitman's verse on different topics but expressing much the same emotion, a joyous reaction to the imminence of death. My pick of these was Gustav Holst's 'Darest thou now, O Soul', beautifully caught by Mr Williams rich interpretation. Arthur Bliss was a composer who I previously had somewhat ignored, a Master of the Queen's Music who wrote music for a monarch famously indifferent to music. However, was much taken by Bliss's setting of Edna St Vincent Millay's 'Gone, gone again is summer', a poem by a writer of whom I was previously ignorant, but who was admirably a staunch defender of civil rights and feminism in the 20s and 30s, and a strong voice against fascism.

The recital moved towards a close with a couple of folk songs compiled by Vaughan Williams in the Appalachians, and featuring some jolly audience participation instigated by the excellent MC, Roderick Williams! 'The Tree in the Wood' gave us a chance to release our inner Appalachian Wave, while 'The Twelve Apostles' allowed us to engage in some hearty singing.

Finally, Mr Williams treated us to three Spirituals, arranged by himself. Introduced, like me, to these deeply emotional devotional songs in Tippett's 'Child of our Time', he determined to come up with his own arrangements. With a Jamaican mother, he clearly felt an affinity with these expressions of slaves' spiritual fervour, and we heard 'Deep River', 'Nobody knows the Trouble I see' and an up-tempo finale of 'Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho'.

It was interesting to see Iain Burnside, a noted communicator and broadcaster as well as a top accompanist, simply here acting as a piano player (brilliantly I might add) while the charismatic Roddy Williams held us all spellbound with both his singing and his introductions.

This was a top event, enjoyed by a large and hugely appreciative audience.