A good deal of attention has been drawn to 2013, quite appropriately, as the bicentennial year of the birth of Verdi and Wagner, and now Decca, a label that has provided outstanding coverage of both of those composers’ works, has pulled out all the stops in reminding us that this year also happens to involve the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten.
Decca’s relationship with Britten was truly unique: for that label, Britten recorded nearly all of his major works, sometimes as conductor, sometimes as pianist; most of those recordings have been kept in circulation on CD, and now all of them are brought together in this huge box, containing 65 CDs, a specially created DVD, and literature that rates attention in its own right.
But the surprising touch that enables this set to be offered as Britten’s “complete works” (“all the works with opus numbers, and all works commercially recorded to date”) is the participation of other labels -- such as EMI, Virgin Classics, Naxos, Warner Classics, and NMC -- which have contributed recordings of the works Britten himself did not record for Decca. The number of participating labels comes to 20, with Decca itself accounting for 75% of the material, and the undertaking had the support of the Britten-Pears Foundation.
The set is thoughtfully organized in four basic sections -- 20 CDs devoted to the operas, 12 to music for stage and screen, 16 to song cycles and other works for voices, 13 to orchestral and instrumental works -- and each of these sections is accompanied by a detailed booklet covering Britten’s contribution to its specific field.
On the four remaining CDs there are newly recorded interviews with some of the musicians who worked closely with Britten, as well as historical recordings, rarities, and Britten’s rehearsals during the recording sessions for the War Requiem, which was remastered this year from the analog master tapes. The DVD is Tony Palmer’s film on the making of the 1967 recording of The Burning Fiery Furnace, chosen, as stated by Decca, “for its unrivalled insight into the Britten-Decca recording relationship and the working methods” of the label’s famous producer John Culshaw and his team.
The package is housed in a handsome box decorated with specially commissioned illustrations, and includes, as the pinnacle of its documentation, a 208-page, full-color hardback book filled with articles and new information, as well as a reproduction of original Decca LP cover art, a good helping of recording session photos, and the beautiful landscapes of Britten’s Aldeburgh, in photographs taken specifically for this edition.
