Britten Winter Words
& Michelangelo Sonnets etc

Nicholas Phan (tenor) Myra Huang (piano)

Avie AV2238

It was exciting to find a young tenor from the USA tackling a major programme of Britten song, and he is generally impressive, with a robust, well disciplined voice and good diction in English & Italian. If you have the Pears/Britten versions, then you could well be advised to add this to your collection.

But there is a serious snag; his pianist, Myra Huang, is too much the dutiful accompanist, never seizing the music with anything approaching Benjamin Britten's characterful piano playing, which is unsurpassable and unforgettable.

But Phan is a tenor to reckon with and perhaps one day we may have a chance to hear him in England with one of our top song-pianists...

Peter Grahame Woolf