I see that the New York Times has a story on Rawia Bishara, the chef at the delightful Tanoreen. When I went there, she actually picked our meal for us, which was very tasty, but next time I'm not messing around and will order the much-acclaimed lamb straight-up.

English music, it seems, has frequented the same zeniths of regard as English cuisine or English teeth. In fact, in a recent conversation with three friends, we were hard pressed to think of a major English composer (national, not import--Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven are out) between Purcell and Elgar, if one can count Elgar as a major English composer. Maybe it was just us.

The reasons why, I think, are fairly numerous and there's an entire book's worth of material on the matter, I'm sure, but this leaves us in a very odd position: where to pick up on English music, and with whom? The early Romantic English composers, Elgar, Quilter, and Stanford have an air of Victorian array around them: there's some nice melodies, sure, but why Elgar and Stanford when one could have Beethoven and Brahms, or Schubert and Schumann? The crux of the matter, of course, comes next: English composers near the turn of the twentieth century were somewhat an eclectic bunch, including, but not limited to Peter Warlock, Gerald Finzi, and Benjamin Britten.

Most excitingly, it seems and as of late, Britten is cresting. It's not a bad thing at all: certainly it's a surprise that his music has gone relatively unnoticed for so long, and those with their ears to the ground will begin to hear Britten's approach to performances.

But where to begin? His music is so complex, and, for lack of a better word, weird. It seems that his music is what people tend to hate in music: weird tonalities, nothing really to grab onto, odd mixtures of sounds, and, perhaps worst, complex and convoluted poetry: settings of Hardy, Donne, Rimbaud's imitations of English.

But this, I claim, is the fertile loam of a good pursuit, and Ian Bostridge, in this week's New Yorker, seems to agree. Bostridge highlights some of the absolute gems in Britten's music, including the Canticles and the Holy Sonnets, and for good reason too.

But there are remarkable pieces, including, of course, but not limited to Les Illuminations, Nocturne, Serenade for Tenor, Horn & strings, as well as the Michelangelo Sonnets (I recommend the Anthony Rolfe Johnson recording).

They're hard precisely because of their complexity, which Bostridge hits on the head: whereas German lieder often contains the emotional depth and exploration of love as a Brittany Spears hit single, there's something non-trivial about Britten's setting of Michelangelo's Sonnet 30 ("Veggio co' bei vostri occhi"), something extremely forlorn and haunting about the stark accompaniment and the simple triads.

But Bostridge does a much better job of discussing this than I could ever try, and I leave it to him to explain the rest.

UPDATE:

Egan Cohen comments:

It was with great dismay that I read your recent article (attached) on Crescat Sententia. While generally somewhat pompous, and on occasion downright dull, Crescat has always maintained high standards of thought, research and scholarship.

First off, neither Elgar nor Stanford are early Romantics by any stretch. Elgar was a late Romantic and Stanford a late-middle Romantic. Any listener with even the barest modicum of musical knowledge and sensitivity understands that there is little of Schumann and certainly nothing of Beethoven or Schubert in the works of Elgar and Stanford. To be fair, both Elgar and Stanford were somewhat indebted to Brahms, but they were much more heavily influenced by Tchaikovsky and Franck(respectively). If one wished to make a comparison between these two composers and similar, yet superior, composers of other nationalities, I would suggest Sibelius (Elgar) and Faure (Stanford). Furthermore, your article was about English composers and Stanford was Irish. He taught at the Royal Academy, to be sure -- just as Dvorak taught at the National Conservatory in New York. That doesn't make Dvorak any less Czech, or Stanford any less Irish.

Furthermore, when discussing English composers, the names Delius, Holst and Vaughan Williams should come to the tongue of even the most casual listener. And the connosieur will, of course, recognise the accomplishments of Arnold Bax, Frank Bridge, Malcolm Arnold, Edmund Rubbra, Cyril Scott and Herbert Howells. I know Ian Bostridge is popular with the snooty academic crowd. And I know it gets you intellectual snob cred to go dropping his name (and Britten's for that matter). Before you delve into any more criticism of my art, please do me a favour: understand what you're talking about. At least the basics. Please.

yours truly,

Egon Cohen

Assistant Conductor, Chamber Opera Chicago.