Most of my "oh, that's Britten" moments are where you might expect them - I'll like a hymn I hear at church, or a bit of something I hear on the radio, and I'll check and it was him.
In case it hasn't come around on the radio, please enjoy "Where do we go from here?" (1943), my favorite obscure Britten composition since I have never heard another version since this centenary recording in 2013 and you'd think it would have become at least a minor torch standard once reintroduced to the wild. It was performed for its original broadcast by Adelaide Hall, but if there was a recording I've never been able to find it. I still want the rest of the Broadway musical it sounds like the first-act finale to.
It's so... not tuneful, when the tunefulness is what I like about him when I like him.
How have his other operas treated you? I am unsurprisingly imprinted on Peter Grimes.
My favorite "Pirate Jenny" is Ute Lemper's, in German.
Fair! I like Ute Lemper and she is an invaluable interpreter of Weill, but for whatever reason I do not love her "Pirate Jenny." I learned "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" from her, however, after years of noncommittally glancing off Mary Martin.
the lyric "fünfzig kanonen" is the best part for me. The way those words match up with the music, and the meaning of them, is perfect, and I haven't found an English translation that hits the same way. Haven't been able to come up with one myself, either.
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In case it hasn't come around on the radio, please enjoy "Where do we go from here?" (1943), my favorite obscure Britten composition since I have never heard another version since this centenary recording in 2013 and you'd think it would have become at least a minor torch standard once reintroduced to the wild. It was performed for its original broadcast by Adelaide Hall, but if there was a recording I've never been able to find it. I still want the rest of the Broadway musical it sounds like the first-act finale to.
It's so... not tuneful, when the tunefulness is what I like about him when I like him.
How have his other operas treated you? I am unsurprisingly imprinted on Peter Grimes.
My favorite "Pirate Jenny" is Ute Lemper's, in German.
Fair! I like Ute Lemper and she is an invaluable interpreter of Weill, but for whatever reason I do not love her "Pirate Jenny." I learned "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" from her, however, after years of noncommittally glancing off Mary Martin.
the lyric "fünfzig kanonen" is the best part for me. The way those words match up with the music, and the meaning of them, is perfect, and I haven't found an English translation that hits the same way. Haven't been able to come up with one myself, either.
I have this problem with the "Kanonen-Song."