Tippett had written the piece for Pears and Britten on their return to the UK during World War II, but 10 years earlier Gerard Finzi had engaged once more with Thomas Hardy’s verse in this vein. Lyrita did Finzi proud in the vinyl days, recording most of the songs in near-ideal acoustics, but Padmore and Vignoles are preferable. Songs like “Shortening Days” anticipate the movement towards a new simplicity by 60 years. Hand on heart, Finzi isn’t for me. I find him plodding and predictable, outside of the marvelous setting of Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality. These songs, though, suggest he could be heard by a sympathetic ear as the English Poulenc.

Britten would show all his new scores to Poulenc, right up to the Frenchman’s death. I don’t know what he made of the Englishman’s settings of German poetry, made in the late 1950s. Um Mitternacht sets the Goethe verse, not the Rückert words set by Mahler. Padmore’s diction is clear as ever but he sounds nothing like a German speaker. A minute or so into the song, Britten settles on an accompaniment of repeated chords, as French as Debussy or Messaien. The depth of feeling in the music surpasses the rest of this program’s content, but Padmore misses the chance, and the delivery is bland. Who Are These Children? sets a Scot, William Soutar, though the expression is again French (“The Children”) or international. The Hölderlin Fragments are sung with accuracy, but the last song is profound. It’s Britten’s major engagement with the whole German song tradition, and Padmore doesn’t reach the summit, though his accompanist certainly does.

Roger Vignoles plays magnificently for the umpteenth time, especially in the very demanding Tippett partnership. He has written an intelligent, informative booklet essay. The CD is a mixed bag, but I doubt Hyperion could make a really bad record, right now, if they tried.

Paul Ingram, FANFARE