The Noël Coward Songbook (CD) by Ian Bostridge / Sophie Daneman / Jeffrey Tate

CD. Tenor Ian Bostridge bids to claim Noël Coward as a classical composer on this album, assisted by pianist Jeffrey Tate and, on five songs, soprano Sophie Daneman. The songs all date from the '20s and '30s, and most of them were associated with Coward's musical revues as well as one of his book musicals, Bitter Sweet. There are also independent songs and songs used incidentally in the Coward straight plays Cavalcade and Private Lives. Although Bostridge includes "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," and gives it a lively reading, with Daneman joining in on some background burbling, he isn't much interested in the witty Coward. Rather, the recording has the air of a classical recital, with the singer in tuxedo standing before a grand piano. Coward is not anathema to such an approach, of course. Despite being of common birth and limited education (not to mention being a self-taught musician), he affected an upper class manner consistent with Bostridge's treatment of his music here; in fact, Coward himself recorded these songs in his own tenor and sometimes with similar piano accompaniment. But Bostridge doesn't quite succeed in turning Coward into Schubert. The lyrics, though often poetic, also drop into vernacular here and there, and sometimes would benefit from a less formal interpretation. And then, too, this is only one part of Coward's talent as a composer; his humor is mostly missing. Maybe that's just to say that instead of being called The Noël Coward Songbook, this album should have been called "A Noël Coward Songbook." ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi