| "English Love", Stone Records, January 2009 |
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A wonderful survey of English Song… Mark Stone is at his absolute best… This English Love CD is sufficiently loved by me to be my CD of the week. David Mellor, Classic FM (broadcast), 4 April 2009
Baritone Mark Stone has it all: a terrific technique, theatrical presence and a voice guaranteed to tingle bits of your spine never tingled before... with delicious repertoire and a sound never less than dreamy. Warwick Thompson, Classic FM Magazine, May 2009 Vaughan Williams opens the programme, with Stone singing one of his most popular and beautiful songs, ‘Silent Noon’, with its idyllic picture of lovers in a time as still as the dragonfly which ‘hangs like a blue thread loosen’d from the sky’. It is sung with feeling and with the word ‘song’ held in a sweet head-voice as though the singer too is reluctant to move on. How effective are Stone’s contrasts in the second Vaughan Williams song. Some nice differentiation is heard too in Purcell’s ‘I attempt from Love’s sickness’. Being used to hearing this delightful piece served by a more slender voice, particularly a counteretenor, I wondered how the larger sound of a baritone would cope. This one does so very well. Stone reduces the weight of tone for the opening verse then adds resonance to command the heart to swell no more with pride. ‘If music be the food of love’ is here in Purcell’s third setting: not the best known one. All the turns and twists are sung free from aspirates. Both Purcell items are in Britten’s arrangements. The Dowland songs have a fresh feel, and what lovely compositions they are. ‘Where’er you walk’, a tenor aria, is often borrowed or, perhaps more accurately purloined by other voices (which never offer anything from ‘Semele’ in return), be it a soprano like Karina Gauvin or a bass such as Norman Foster, so why not add a baritone? It is good to hear Stone bringing light decorations to the da capo. He introduces a buoyant touch to ‘Silent worship’, using a darker timbre for the middle verse. To the Finzi pair, especially ‘I said to Love’, Stone’s fuller richer sound draws out the drama. He employs his deeper tones elsewhere too, to good effect. Conversely, these being love-songs there is much that is tender in both words and music, one fine example being Bridge’s ‘Come to me in my dreams’. Stone captures the emptiness, almost achingly so, of Butterworth’s setting of Housman’s regret over lost friends in ‘With rue my heart is laden’. As you see, this is not a recital restricted to one vocal hue. Each song is looked at and receives relevant response from both singer and pianist. Indeed, Stephen Barlow’s concomitant contribution is not limited to his pianistic prowess, for he is here as a composer too, presenting the second of his ‘Four lost Quilter Songs’, which forms an attractive conclusion to this recital. He introduces so much by way of nuance and colour to make this a very interesting and fulfilling programme, one which is well recorded. John T Hughes, International Record Review, March 2009 Mark sings really well and what I love is the choice of repertory... So really this is a joyous recording and over seventy minutes it represents very good value. And I think, well, Mark and Stephen have shown great initiative really, sort of getting this up and doing it themselves and we should reward that initiative by buying into this. David Mellor, ClassicFM (broadcast), 22 March 2009 Mark Stone, with his warm, supple baritone Hilary Finch, BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 There's much to admire. Two songs by Dowland are beautifully done and the Finzi songs To Lizbie Browne and I said to Love are mood-perfect. Stephen Barlow is an exceptionally creative accompanist. Robert Cockroft, Yorkshire Post, 30 January 2009 Mark Stone's beautiful baritone does admirably carry his listener through the works. This is a well-schooled voice, light but rich of timbre, excellently controlled and thoughtfully deployed; Stone's diction is admirable... Stone's voice is lyrical and beautiful, and he is expertly accompanied by pianist Stephen Barlow, whose widely-spun phrases conjure much drama, and sensitively support the singer. Both voice and piano are crystal clear and prominent in this clean, close recording: an atmosphere of intimacy pervades the entire programme. Dave Paxton, MusicOMH.com, 23 February 2009 His light, airy baritone is well suited to the more easy-going English love song Hugh Canning, Sunday Times, 15 February 2009 But there are still some first-time issues available to enjoy, not least those brought out by small, independent companies - and none can be smaller or more defiantly independent than Stone Records. The creation of Mark Stone, a baritone of extraordinary elegance and unforced expressiveness, the label has as its inaugural release English Love, a generous collection of love-songs in English by composers spanning more than four centuries, from Dowland to Stephen Barlow, taking in Purcell, Handel, Haydn, Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Frank Bridge, John Ireland, George Butterworth, Peter Warlock, Gerald Finzi and Benjamin Britten. Versatile in his response to the varying stylistic demands, Stone communicates with charm and eloquence, Stephen Barlow accompanying his voice with a genuine feeling for tone-colour and shape. Barlow's own offering has an interesting history, the result of his work with Mark Stone on recording a double-disc of the complete songs of Roger Quilter for Sony BMG. His setting of Thomas Lovell Beddoes' "If thou would'st ease thine heart" is a deliberate recreation of Quilter's late romantic style and is one of Barlow's Four Lost Quilter Songs which this duo premiered last summer as part of the "Celebrating English Song" series in Tardebigge Parish Church. It is a beautiful, pensive little gem, though Barlow's pastiche makes one wonder how much Quilter might have been influenced by Brahms: the opening bars are quite disconcertingly Brahms-ian. This welcome release is beautifully packaged and documented and deserves to do well. Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post, 5 February 2009 The purchase of the recording was worth the risk, because he is excellent, and so is his collaborator, Mr. Barlow, who in addition to providing a fine partnership in the performance of the songs contributes one of his own songs as the finale to the program. Stone selected the songs, put them in order, provides excellent brief notes about the composers and the music, and sings with great beauty and sensitivity... The entire production is very professionally done, fine sound quality, excellent graphics on the booklet, first-class all the way. Salute! Professor Arthur S Leonard, Leonard Link, 27 January 2009 I first encountered the voice of the English baritone, Mark Stone, when I reviewed the first volume of his edition of the complete songs of Roger Quilter - when will Volume Two appear, I wonder? I commented then that he “possesses a good, pleasing voice, which he uses with intelligence and good taste.” And I think that verdict holds good in terms of this new release. As was the case on that Quilter release, he receives excellent support from Stephen Barlow. And that Quilter project has had a surprising outcome. In his booklet note Mark Stone relates that when he and Stephen Barlow were researching Quilter’s songs they came across references to four songs which are now lost. Stone had the happy idea of suggesting to Barlow that he should compose his own versions of the songs in question “in the style of, and as a homage to, Quilter.” At the very end of this disc we hear the second of that quartet, presumably receiving its first recording. It’s an engaging setting of words by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849), who, by chance or design, also furnished the text for Britten’s Wild with passion. Barlow’s song is a gently melancholic piece. It sounds completely convincing and it’s also rather lovely in its own right. I’d like very much to hear the complete set. All the other composers on the programme are represented by two songs and the recital has been thoughtfully designed. For the most part, each pair of songs by the more recent English composers contrast nicely with each other. In between each pairing is placed a single example of a song from an earlier age, an arrangement that works well. The Vaughan Williams pair begins with an account of Silent Noon that’s a touch too slow for my taste. Stone sings expressively, though he displays an occasional tendency to over-emphasise individual words - in this case the word “rosy”, which occurs as early as the second line. This habit crops up on a few other occasions in the recital. It’s not a major flaw but the effect is a little jarring when it happens, not least because it means the line is broken. Happily, an eloquent account of Love bade me welcome is much more successful. I enjoyed the Quilter group. Love’s philosophy features on the aforementioned Quilter recital and once again it’s done well, with both performers conveying the eagerness of the setting. They’re equally adept at catching the mood of Go, lovely rose. In the Ireland coupling I much prefer, as a song, Love is a sickness full of woes to its more lachrymose companion. Bridge is represented by two very fine songs. Love went a-riding is probably the better known. This histrionic offering is given a proud, dramatic performance and Stephen Barlow seems to make light of the fiendish piano part. Somewhat less familiar, perhaps, is Come to me in my dreams. This is a wonderful song and Stone puts it across very well, especially the gentle longing of the first and last stanzas. Bridge’s most famous pupil, Britten, is represented both as composer and arranger. His arrangement of The salley gardens is very well known. However, I can’t recall hearing his Beddoes setting, Wild with passion, before. This short song was, like A Ceremony of Carols, a product of Britten’s voyage back across the Atlantic when he and Peter Pears returned from the USA during the Second World War. It’s appropriately tempestuous. Britten is also credited with the Purcell arrangements. His realisation of If music be the food of love is a bit florid for my taste but Stone copes well with the ornate line. I like the way that he fines down his voice for I attempt from Love’s sickness to fly. Stephen Barlow’s accompaniments to both of these songs are tasteful. In fact all the early songs are well done. Both performers display a light touch for the Dowland pieces and the same is true for the Handel offerings. In these Stone adds just the right amount of decoration to the vocal line in the da capo sections and I particularly warmed to his account of Silent worship. The two Haydn pieces are fairly slight but they are nonetheless delightful and good-humoured. This is an intelligently planned and well-executed recital. We are certainly not short of discs of English song these days – hurrah!. This one is well worth hearing and I appreciate the thought that has gone into the choice of the items included in the programme and the positioning of them within it. The sessions took place in the pleasing acoustics of Potton Hall, Suffolk, which is seemingly becoming a venue of choice for recordings of song recitals. The documentation is good and is clearly laid out. John Quinn, Musicweb International, 10 April 2009 Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow together enter fully into the world of the poet and composer, their technical accomplishment always at the service of the music. Stone's excellent diction, faultless intonation, admirable breath support and focused vocal line are everywhere evident. His attractive dark tone can project virility when appropriate or, poised on a slender thread of sound, be gentle and poignant. Barlow matches him with his own fine control of a wide spectrum of dynamics and superb tonal shading. Peter Naylor, Peter Warlock Society Newsletter, Spring 2009 |