The Heart of the Matter: rare Britten and a new James MacMillan work in an imaginative programme for tenor, horn and piano

Richard Watkins, Julius Drake and Sir James MacMillan take a bow in Middle Temple Hall, after the world premiere of MacMillan’s new work for horn & piano (Photo: Temple Music Foundation)

Schumann: Adagio and Allegro, Liederkreis Op. 24, James MacMillan: Duet for Horn & Piano, Britten: The Heart of the Matter, Poulenc: Elegie, Tel jour telle nuit, Schubert: Auf dem Strom; Nicholas Mulroy, Richard Watkins, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed 30 October 2024

A rare outing for Britten’s expansion of his Canticle III and the premiere of a new work by James MacMillan at the centre of this wonderfully intelligent programme, featuring a terrific performance from Nicholas Mulroy

Britten’s The Heart of the Matter was a musical sequence setting Edith Sitwell’s poetry created for the Aldeburgh Festival in 1956 with his third canticle, Still Falls the Rain at its centre. The canticle had premiered at the 1955 festival to great acclaim and Sitwell was invited to the 1956 festival and created The Heart of the Matter with Britten. It received no further performances till Peter Pears revived it in 1983 and the additional material was published in 1994. It remains undeservedly far less known than Still Falls the Rain.

Britten’s The Heart of the Matter formed the centrepiece of a concert presented by Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall on 30 October 2024 when pianist Julius Drake was joined by horn player Richard Watkins and tenor Nicholas Mulroy (a last-minute replacement for tenor James Way, who was ill). Alongside Britten there was music by his great contemporary, Francis Poulenc with his Elegie for horn and piano written in memory of horn-player Dennis Brain, who gave the premiere of The Heart of the Matter, plus Poulenc’s cycle Tel jour telle nuit. The final work in the programme was Schubert’s great piece d’occasion, Auf dem Strom from tenor, horn and piano.

Schumann was a composer dear to Britten and Pears and in the first half of the concert we heard Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 24 and his Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70 for horn and piano. The first half of the concert concluded with another centrepiece, the world premiere of James MacMillan‘s Duet for Horn and Piano, a work commissioned by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, himself a horn player, specifically for this occasion.  Another name weaving itself around the concert was the late Paul Darling KC, Treasurer of Middle Temple. He was a sponsor of the concert but died suddenly this year before seeing the concert to fruition and the evening was dedicated to his memory.

We began with Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro from 1849, a work written to take advantage of the advances in horn technology with the introduction of valves. The result is a two-movement piece that makes full use of the instruments then newfound abilities to play chromatically with accuracy. The first movement featured a slow unfolding dialogue between horn and piano. Though Watkins played with lovely even tone and finely sustained high register, the instrument was perhaps slightly too prominent in the mix. I would have liked more piano and began to wonder what this would sound like on instruments of Schumann’s day. The Allegro was fast and vivid with some stirring moments.

Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 24 setting Heine, from 1840, comes before his better known cycles, Myrthen, Liederkreis, Op. 39, Frauenliebe und -leben and Dichterliebe. There is no narrative, as such, just the narrator unfolding his unsatisfied, unrequited love for his beloved, and gradually coming to acceptance. Tenor Nicholas Mulroy is someone who we have heard most frequently in the music of Bach and Monteverdi, so it was refreshing to hear him in this more Romantic repertoire.

They began gently, with Mulroy’s narrator speaking directly to us. There was a sense of immediacy and the intensity with which Mulroy imbued the words was notable. This wasn’t a strictly operatic performance, but he made ever word mean something and brought a wide range of expressive colour to the music. In ‘Es treibt mich hin’ the faster moments were vividly done, the words spat out, whilst ‘Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen’ had beautifully floated phrases and a final voice that was barely there and the mood continued in the magical postlude. ‘Lieb’ Liebchen’ might have been quiet, but it was vivid and intense, again words to the fore. ‘Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden’ had a slow build to it, Mulroy’s voice over the rocking piano, but the final verse was bleak yet warmed by the repeat of the opening which the two made very touching. They plunged straight in to the wild and stormy ‘Warte, warte, wilder Schiffmann’, making the whole deeply felt, this mood continuing with the fond remembrance in ‘Berg und Burgen schaun herunter’. Dark and sober, ‘Anfangs wollt’ ich fast verzagen’ was almost commanding, leading to the gently consoling piano introduction to ‘Mit Myrten und Rosen’ which brought the cycle to a deeply felt finish.

In his spoken introduction to the piece, Sir James MacMillan explained that his intention with Duet for Horn & Piano was to write a more reflective piece, 15 minutes of endless melody. The result was a slow unfolding horn melody, certainly not tentative but rather ingratiating, supported by a spare, wide-ranging piano which created a sort of web around the horn, with MacMillan concentrating the piano pitches in registers higher or lower than the horn’s. There were sudden eruptions, moments when the atmosphere changed, but the ingratiating melodic line always returned and as the piece developed, MacMillan introduced more ornamentation, inflections inspired by Scottish folksong. The final eruption threatened to destabilise things with both horn and piano having fast and vivid music, but the melody returned, highly decorated, and then the music evaporated.

This was a highly technically demanding piece, both in terms of the length of time the horn was playing and in the techniques used, Richard Watkins rose to the challenge brilliantly, never once letting slip the idea that this might be difficult at all, and he was finely partnered by Julius Drake.

After the interval we moved on to Britten’s The Heart of the Matter. The short Prologue featured a horn solo that could have been lifted from Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, along with a solo line from Nicholas Mulroy where he floated the voice in magically yet developed into fierce declamation. Song was contained, intimate and lyrical, with just voice and piano. Watkins and Drake were dark and uncompromising in the instrumental interludes in Still Falls the Rain contrasting with Mulroy’s verses where he floated the voice, creating something haunting yet with an edge, and with a wonderful intensity to the words. By the fourth verse, things were more demonstrative but in the fifth, both piano and voice were barely there yet with a vivid intensity of words. This remarkable focus continued into the sixth verse leading to the final chorale for voice and horn. The Epilogue returned us to the horn material from the opening, along with fine melismatic passages from Mulroy. 

This was a terrific performance from all concerned and the remarkable intensity and control that Mulroy brought to the piece was complemented by the fine performances from Watkins and Drake. It was interesting hearing The Heart of the Matter, but I feel that Still Falls the Rain seems not to need any further excuse.

Watkins and Drake then performed Poulenc’s Elegie, written in memory of horn player Dennis Brain. The repeated vigorous passages had remarkable focus, intensity and violence to them, contrasting highly with the more lyrical ones, and in the centre one of Poulenc’s wonderfully consoling melodies. The ending, with its hand-stopping in the horn was touchingly evocative. 

Poulenc’s 1936 song cycle Tel jour telle nuit followed. This sets poems by Paul Eluard, coming from a collection the poet published in 1936 which arose from a deeply romantic period in his life, inspired by his second wife whom he had married in 1934 (his first wife had been Gala, who later married the artist Salvador Dali). 

Many of the songs are dedicated to Poulenc’s friends including Picasso, the poet’s wife, and Poulenc’s singing partner, Pierre Bernac. Mulroy and Drake began with quiet intensity, with a sense of impetus to the words. At the end the song opened out somewhat, leading to the second where Poulenc gave us his familiar alternation of major and minor, happy and sad. The third was fast and vivid, fleeting and curious, the fourth dark and low with Mulroy evoking a sense of unnamed horror. Five was a fast patter song, full of storms and phantoms, but then the sixth returned us to calm Poulenc-ian beauty. Seven was urgent, with a restless piano whilst eight was another patter song, violent at first, then calm and finally implacable. The final song is the longest, austere yet tender with a moving postlude in the piano.

We finished with Schubert, his occasional piece Auf dem Strom setting Ludwig Rellstab for tenor, horn and piano, written for a concert of Schubert’s music presented on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death. The first public concert to feature just Schubert’s music, it was to be the year of his death too. The work is about lyrical longing and we had a consoling horn over a flowing piano complementing Mulroy’s lyrical, appealing vocal line.

This was a well filled concert, full of fascinating links and influences with Britten’s intriguing The Heart of the Matter at its centre. Performances were uniformly terrific and we benefited from the remarkable intimacy of Middle Temple Hall, allowing highly communicative performances from Nicholas Mulroy. His contribution was nothing short of heroic, standing in and not changing the programme, yet there was never a moment when he did not seem completely at one with the music, eagerly communicating with us.