Hugh Benham: Songs for Times and Seasons – Review by Fanfare
“There is something decidedly Brittenish about some of the harmonies and flighty melodic constructs... But it is Benham’s ability to conjure up atmosphere that impresses the most.”
29th July 2026
Hugh Benham: Songs for Times and Seasons – Review by Fanfare
“There is something decidedly Brittenish about some of the harmonies and flighty melodic constructs... But it is Benham’s ability to conjure up atmosphere that impresses the most.”
29th July 2026
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It is always refreshing to return to the music of Hugh Benham. Previously, I reviewed a full-length disc of his choral music and elsewhere in this issue lies my review of his music for piano duo. Like this album, both of those discs are on the Convivium label.
Benham’s four-song cycle Times and Seasons was composed in 2023–24. There is something decidedly Brittenish about some of the harmonies and flighty melodic constructs of Benham’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s Lovely Spring. Amy Carson’s voice is fresh and true, Nicola Rose’s playing nicely even and beautifully variegated via her expertise with the sustaining pedal, and her strength of articulation. Carson’s diction is good, too. But it is Benham’s ability to conjure up atmosphere that impresses the most. With text from Emily Brontë, her poem “Love and Friendship,” Benham realizes that less is more. The piano’s gentle moto perpetuo at the opening seems to imply a certain restlessness. It is a song of summer that exists in the shadow of winter; even here, winter intrudes on the poet’s thoughts. Thomas Hardy provides the text for “An Autumn Rain-Scene,” and the piano illustrates the “trudge” toward a “merry-making.” Rain, a vital constituent of any English autumn (or fall, for Americans) makes an appearance; how beautiful the chordal section of the second stanza (“One slowly drives his herd to the stall”). Finally, winter arrives with Walter de la Mare’s “Dream-Song,” as a poem, a beautiful depiction of transition between “twilight” and “starlight.”
The companion piece is Three Songs from William Blake, composed in 2023 and dedicated to Adrian Green of Convivium Records (who performed two of them at the composer’s 80th birthday concert the next year). The first, “The Shepherd,” finds the piano pining shepherd’s frolicking pipes while the soprano sings of “the Shepherd’s sweet lot.” Benham’s core Englishness shines through it all, as does his sensitivity to the poem. “Ah, Sun-flower!” is an interior, two-stanza poem that seems to encourage Benham to lean toward Wagnerian territory. Finally, “To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,” another proof positive of the effectiveness of Benham’s less-is-more policy. Carson’s voice seems particularly pure here, and steady.
A lovely way to spend 18 minutes. The recording is good, the performances touching. Recommended.
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It is always refreshing to return to the music of Hugh Benham. Previously, I reviewed a full-length disc of his choral music and elsewhere in this issue lies my review of his music for piano duo. Like this album, both of those discs are on the Convivium label.
Benham’s four-song cycle Times and Seasons was composed in 2023–24. There is something decidedly Brittenish about some of the harmonies and flighty melodic constructs of Benham’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s Lovely Spring. Amy Carson’s voice is fresh and true, Nicola Rose’s playing nicely even and beautifully variegated via her expertise with the sustaining pedal, and her strength of articulation. Carson’s diction is good, too. But it is Benham’s ability to conjure up atmosphere that impresses the most. With text from Emily Brontë, her poem “Love and Friendship,” Benham realizes that less is more. The piano’s gentle moto perpetuo at the opening seems to imply a certain restlessness. It is a song of summer that exists in the shadow of winter; even here, winter intrudes on the poet’s thoughts. Thomas Hardy provides the text for “An Autumn Rain-Scene,” and the piano illustrates the “trudge” toward a “merry-making.” Rain, a vital constituent of any English autumn (or fall, for Americans) makes an appearance; how beautiful the chordal section of the second stanza (“One slowly drives his herd to the stall”). Finally, winter arrives with Walter de la Mare’s “Dream-Song,” as a poem, a beautiful depiction of transition between “twilight” and “starlight.”
The companion piece is Three Songs from William Blake, composed in 2023 and dedicated to Adrian Green of Convivium Records (who performed two of them at the composer’s 80th birthday concert the next year). The first, “The Shepherd,” finds the piano pining shepherd’s frolicking pipes while the soprano sings of “the Shepherd’s sweet lot.” Benham’s core Englishness shines through it all, as does his sensitivity to the poem. “Ah, Sun-flower!” is an interior, two-stanza poem that seems to encourage Benham to lean toward Wagnerian territory. Finally, “To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,” another proof positive of the effectiveness of Benham’s less-is-more policy. Carson’s voice seems particularly pure here, and steady.
A lovely way to spend 18 minutes. The recording is good, the performances touching. Recommended.
