Britten’s Serenade: Mark Padmore, Dowland and MacMillan

Britten Young Apollo
Purcell/Britten Chacony in G minor
Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Dowland/MacGregor Mr Dowland’s Midnight
James MacMillan Piano Concerto no. 2

Mark Padmore tenor
Alexei Watkins horn
Joanna MacGregor conductor/piano

Arguably Britten’s greatest work for his life-long companion and muse, Peter Pears, his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings premiered at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1943. Britten had a superb knowledge and deep love of English poetry, and his settings of Tennyson, Blake, Keats and medieval lyric remain unsurpassed in their drama, insight and intensity. Pears’ tenor part is taken here by the phenomenal Mark Padmore, while the virtuosic horn part, composed for the masterful Dennis Brain, is performed by BPO’s young principal horn Alexei Watkins.

Wrapped around this masterpiece are Britten’s exhilarating Young Apollo, Joanna MacGregor’s dreamy, jazzy arrangements of Dowland, and Britten’s favourite composer, Purcell. To finish, James MacMillan’s concerto for piano and strings: part love letter to Scottish folk music and part satire on political hypocrisy, it ends with the wildest imaginable ceilidh, replete with drumming, stamping and hooting.

‘Mark Padmore can sing with penetrating intensity, and he’s a riveting actor. This is eloquent singing driven by astute and sensitive attention to the texts.’ – The New York Times