Britain's Finzi Singers, under the direction of Paul Spicer, specialize in twentieth-century British choral music. This CD, the third in a series featuring an all-Britten program, includes one of his earliest works, written while he was at the Royal College of Music and experimenting with serial procedures: "A Boy Was Born." One of his last compositions, "Sacred and Profane," written the year before his death in 1976, is a cyclic setting of verse from the 12th and 14th centuries. Also included are "Five Flower Songs" (1942) and "Advanced Democracy" (1938, reflecting the political unrest in Europe). As is typical of contemporary classical, the sound can be tonally ambigious, stylistically discordant and disturbing, though expertly realized. |
