British Iconoclasts

Britten and Tippett shared many traits: both were pacifists; conscientious objectors during the war; homosexuals, at a time when it was publicly outlawed in Britain; and both shared a love of older forms of music. Drawing on one of Corelli’s concerti grossi, Tippett’s Fantasia views the Baroque through modern eyes in this passing from darkness into light.

In Britten’s sparkling setting for voice and string orchestra (initially for soprano, later tenor) this phrase from French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud becomes an enigmatic throughline amid the poet’s eccentric scenes. Lose yourself in Britten’s crystalline textures, and Rimbaud’s magical imagery: of boats battered by whirlpools of light, of jugglers and rogues, cortèges of russet and opaline.

Elsewhere, we hear a trio of works by modern British mavericks – Errollyn Wallen’s propulsive Photography, Edmund Finnis’s crystalline Hymn (after Byrd), and Black Shuck Lament by previous BBC Philharmonic Composer in Residence, Tom Coult.