Britten: The Canticles; Ian Bostridge, David Daniels

If you were assembling a latter-day dream team for a package program of all five Britten Canticles, this would probably be it. With one or two exceptions, it delivers everything you’d want. Ian Bostridge–the most literate tenor on God’s earth–was born to sing this repertory, observing subtleties of text and niceties of diction without compromise to the beauty of fine-spun legato lines. David Daniels, an accomplished actor, sings the boy in Abraham and Isaac with exactly the right mix of pathos and restraint. Christopher Maltman provides the vocal equivalent of lithe, young, gym-toned muscularity in “Journey of the Magi” and the group of folk-song settings that pad out the disc. And Julius Drake homes in as if by instinct on what really tells in the accompaniments: a figure here that signals something to the voice, a chord there that transforms the color of a phrase. The two supporting instrumentalists (Timothy Brown, horn, and Aline Brewer, harp) add to the pleasure of it all. Just one reservation: Bostridge doesn’t quite have the climactic roar of joy required for “My Beloved Is Mine” or the authoritative weight for Abraham, and Daniels can sound womanly, as well as overartful in the folk songs (although not everyone feels comfortable with countertenors singing folksongs). And in any case, it’s not enough to counter the outstanding virtues of the disc. –Michael White