Benjamin Britten is undoubtedly the finest of all when it comes to setting English poetry to music. His knowledge of his native verse was seemingly encyclopaedic, covering a vast array of lyrical poetry from the 16th century to his own time. 

Les Illuminations

In his early work he had worked often with the pushy WH Auden but with 1944’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, he set out on his own. The first thing noticed in the cycle is the horn. The work was written for and in consultation with Dennis Brain, the finest soloist of his generation who was to tragically die young whilst engaging in his passion for cars. Britten devised the opening and closing sonorities of the piece to played on the open valves of the instrument leading to early criticism that the soloist had pitch problems. 

The work was quickly recorded with the composer and its dedicatees within a year of its premiere, and it is this recording with the Boyd Neel Orchestra on Decca, which became the template for all later recordings of the work. Pears and...