Benjamin Britten: An Alpine Suite for recorder trio.

If the CD catalogues are consulted, the listener will discover that there are 66 versions of The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, 50 of The Ceremony of Carols, 45 editions of the Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and 37 for the Simple Symphony. All great works and all demanding many interpretations. Turn, however, to the delightful Alpine Suite (1955) for recorder trio and a very different story emerges. There are only three recordings presently available. And one of them is not in the original instrumentation. More about that later.

The Alpine Suite was composed during February 1955 whilst Britten was holidaying with Peter Pears and the artist Mary Potter. Included in the party were Ronald and Rose-Marie Duncan. Duncan was a poet, playwright and writer: he provided Britten with the libretto for his opera The Rape of Lucretia. They were staying in the Swiss mountain resort of Zermatt. Lying in the shadow of the Matterhorn, this town is well-known for skiing, climbing and hiking. The story goes that Mary Potter fell and injured her leg on the first day of the holiday, so was confined to the hotel.

Pears, Potter and Britten were competent recorderists, so the composer felt that a short piece of music for three recorders (2 descant and 1 treble) that the three of them could play, would be a fitting gesture. They had all taken their recorders with them on holiday.

There are six short movements in this charming 7½ minute work:

1 Arrival at Zermatt

2 Swiss Clock (Romance)

3 Nursery Slopes

4 Alpine Scene

5 Moto perpetuo: Down the Piste

6 Farewell to Zermatt.

Unless the listener knew this music was by Britten, I doubt that they would ever guess. It is largely tonal in concept and straightforward, but always spontaneous in form. Harmonic dissonances tend to arrive by contrapuntal clash rather than a ‘piling up’ of chords.  There is a definite ‘modal’ feel to some of this music that may derive from modulations to the submediant (6^th degree of the diatonic scale) and the subdominant (4^th degree of the diatonic scale).

The Alpine Suite is not programme music, but I think that the temperament of the music captures the mood of this mountain resort. Certainly, the brittle sound of the recorders lends a cool atmosphere to the snow and frost bound winter landscape. Highlights for me are the gentle 6/8 ‘meander’ on the ‘Nursery Slopes’, the swishing ‘Down the Piste’ dominated by semiquaver runs, and a ‘romance’ featuring the charmingly ticking ‘Swiss Clock’, minus the cuckoo…The ‘Alpine Scene’ is probably the most descriptive and challenging of these six pieces. My only concern is that the entire piece is over all too soon.

The first public performance was given on 26 June 1955 by members of the Aldeburgh Music Club by The Meare which is an artificial lake at Thorpeness, near Aldeburgh.  It was broadcast the following year on the BBC Home Service on the morning of 8 December.  This was performed by the Stanley Taylor Recorder Consort.

The score of the Alpine Suite for three recorders was published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1956.

In 2015 Michela Petri (recorder) and Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) released a CD of music for their instruments (OUR RECORDINGS 6.220611 SACD).  This included works by Gordon Jacob, Malcolm Arnold and Vagn Holmboe. As part of their programme, the artists arranged Britten’s Alpine Suite for solo recorder and harpsichord. In my opinion this arrangement works just as well as the original, and, if anything, is fresher and more vibrant.

The original version has been issued on Dutton Epoch (CDLX 7142) played by The Flautadors. This CD includes the complete recorder works by Britten and Edmund Rubbra. The Alpine Suite has also been included on the massive Decca issue of Britten’s Complete Works.

The three-recorder version can be heard in a splendid performance on YouTube.