John Mark Ainsley, Iain Burnside - Remember Your Lovers (2005)

John Mark Ainsley and Iain Burnside make a formidable combination and they are matched here with a formidable programme. Tippett's writing for voice and piano is unremitting in its demands and much less certain in its rewards.
The performers' concentration must be absolute: that is fact. Whether the listener will be proportionately moved is a matter for doubtful speculation.
It goes against the grain to say this, because the Tippett of youthful ecstasy (as in The MidsummerMarriage and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra) exerts a strong allure. But there's no escaping the fact that Boyhood's End and The Heart's Assurance exert a slim hold on the memory – only a few specific phrases, particularly of the singer's music, having stuck.
That is extraordinary, and it is reinforced by the inclusion here of the Canticle by Britten which the mind retains, both in feeling and specific detail.
That work, the setting of Francis Quarles's 'So I my best-beloved's am', presumably has been chosen, as the one item in which Tippett is neither composer nor arranger, because it accords with the line 'Remember your lovers', taken as the title-phrase. I'm not sure it was a good idea, as Britten's mastery suggests just what is so often wanting in Tippett: economy and repose.
The other composer present in force is Purcell and here, curiously, Tippett's self-discipline is impressive, even as against Britten's in his comparable arrangements. Burnside writes in his introductory notes: 'While Britten's dense pianistic approach now jars on ears that have undergone the Early Music revolution, Tippett and [Walter] Bergmann stay light on their feet.' The recording is fine with excellent presence.