This is worth having for the first track alone: an impeccable account of Finzi’s Come Away, Death, with Ian Bostridge blending melancholy and nonchalance, Antonio Pappano accompanying with tender reticence. Bostridge, who names Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ades’s The Tempest as milestones, squeezes every nuance of meaning from these Shakespeare settings. The recital is well constructed: Elizabethan lute songs (with the incomparable Elizabeth Kenny) lead to Schubert’s An Silvia (sung in English) and on to Quilter, Gurney and Warlock. Three Korngold songs precede sharply contrasting settings of Fancie, by Poulenc and Britten. Tippett’s Songs for Ariel and three songs for Stravinsky complete this richly varied homage. Hear them performed live at Wigmore Hall, London on 14 November.
