Unveiled: Britten, Tippett, Gipps, Browne, Thomas
Elgan Llŷr Thomas (tenor), Iain Burnside (piano), Craig Ogden (guitar)
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, June 2023
Hearing Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets in Jeremy Sams's direct English translations is quite a revelation, underlining the fact that this is a cycle about a 'love that dare not speak its name'...
Unveiled: Britten, Tippett, Gipps, Browne, Thomas
Elgan Llŷr Thomas (tenor), Iain Burnside (piano), Craig Ogden (guitar)
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Editor's Choice, June 2023
Hearing Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets in Jeremy Sams's direct English translations is quite a revelation, underlining the fact that this is a cycle about a 'love that dare not speak its name'...
About
In Jeremy Sams’ new English - language singing version of Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, the passionate sentiments are liberated from the safe historical distance of the Italian Renaissance and unveiled in a way that was not possible in 1940, when Britten wrote t he cycle – his first for his partner Peter Pears. Tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas presents it alongside Michael Tippett’s equally ardent Songs for Achilles and a short item by W. Denis Browne, a close friend of the poet Rupert Brooke, as well as premiere recording s of four Brooke settings by Ruth Gipps and a new song - cycle by Thomas himself, to poems by Andrew McMillan. Tackling themes of love, shame, acceptance, war and death, the programme traverses a history of male homosexuality from necessary discretion to the (relatively) liberated present.
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
-
An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
-
An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
-
Elgan Llŷr Thomas on Unveiled
28th Jun 2023
In the wake of the release of his debut album featuring a bold new translation of Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets (plus music by Tippett, Gipps and Thomas himself), the Welsh tenor discusses queer representation in opera and song - and why he feels that 'it's about time we started adding other stories into the mix'...
Awards and reviews
-
Presto Editor's ChoiceJune 2023
June 2023
Hearing Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets in Jeremy Sams's direct English translations is quite a revelation, underlining the fact that this is a cycle about a 'love that dare not speak its name' with a frankness which would have been nigh-on impossible at the time the work was premiered. Thomas and Burnside do it full, impassioned justice, and the Welsh tenor's own SWAN (combining tenderness and flashes of quirky humour) acts as a most effective counterpart.
