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DAVID TAYLOE and DYLAN PEREZ

Red House, Aldeburgh (August 1)

A recital of English song, accompanied on Benjamin Britten’s own piano in the library of his Red House, so full of resonances, promised a mouthwatering experience, and in many respects it was. But Britten himself proved only a fleeting presence in this hour-long programme promoted by Summer at Snape 2025. Had we heard more of him it might have enlivened a somewhat samey atmosphere created by many of the offerings.

The emerging young American tenor David Tayloe has an attractive voice, creamy and appealing, and in the opening three Purcell items, realisations by Britten and Thomas Ades, he displayed an appropriate alto-like timbre. “Hark the Ech’ing Air” was a mite too hectic in its delivery, but pianist Dylan Perez brought crisp, harpsichord-like articulation to Britten’s accompaniment.

Then began a lengthy sequence overladen with the melancholy which pervades so much song-writing by English composers of the first half of the 20th century. Finzi’s Thomas Hardy cycle “Till Earth Outwears” set the regretful mood, followed by Herbert Howells’ “King David” and “Come Sing and Dance”.

Tayloe’s music-stand seemed a barrier between more vivid communication with the audience, so some of the narratives were obscured, but the manner in which he marshalled his voice throughout the sequence was exemplary. And Perez proved a prince among accompanists, finding exactly the right Bernstein moment with which to launch each item, breathing and phrasing along with the soloist, and releasing the conclusion of each postlude with gentle finality.

A sequence of Peter Warlock songs at last provided an emotional release from so much depression, concluding with a “Yarmouth Fair” drawing great energy from Tayloe.

And now at last, coming to the end, he could open up his tones with three Percy Grainger folksong settings, ending with a powerful “Hard-Hearted Barb’a (H)Ellen”, Perez vividly conveying its Gothic accompaniment.

Christopher Morley

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