Photo, Mark Allan
Monday, July 21, 2025
Royal Albert Hall, London
Get your harmonica out! Allan Clayton does just that during his singing of Tom Coult’s texts based on ghost stories by M. R. James, holding the attention for twenty-five minutes, atmospherically/discombobulatingly orchestrated, and reminding, for different reasons, of Britten’s Nocturne (also for tenor) and the Billy Budd character of Vere (haunted) as well as Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King. This noteworthy BBC commission will indeed appeal to the curious listener, keen to explore the new, open to the unexpected, and appreciative of great singing-acting, pertinently coupled to Mahler Seven, unofficially ‘The Song of the Night’, for which John Storgårds was a flexible host, the middle movements (‘Nachtmusik I & II’ with a central spooky Scherzo) each ‘Nacht’ well-judged in tempo, they need to flow, the second one with serenading guitar and mandolin (well-captured in the broadcast mix), although the Scherzo could have been more sinister. Of the outer movements, the first lacked the last degree of impetus and romance, while the Finale, launched at a rate of knots that was messy, soon settled to straightness, suppressing the nudge this (now daylight and festive, with marching bands) music needs, Bernstein’s second New York recording (DG) the exemplar ‘explainer’ of this curious payoff.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002fwn5