Composer Michael Berkeley is joined by famous friends on ‘Collaborations’ — review

The list of celebrity performers on this album includes one interloper. Musicians like mezzo Alice Coote, pianist Clare Hammond, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and the BBC Singers belong together; less so Neil Tennant, singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Pet Shop Boys.

Composer Michael Berkeley explains that he first met Tennant on his Radio 3 programme, Private Passions, after which they became friends and started going to each other’s concerts. One evening, when Berkeley was in the bath, he wrote a song about the invasion of Ukraine. Tennant responded by adding the words and recorded himself singing it. The result, with assistance from guitarist David Gilmour, was “Zero Hour” — a pop song of defiance and hope with the sirens of Kyiv wailing in the background.

Tennant suggested including the song on an album of Berkeley collaborations and that led to this programme of diverse music performed by some of Berkeley’s favourite colleagues.

The highlights are two series of miniatures that Berkeley calls “Haiku”. Series one, Birds, is for piano, each brief solo representing a particular species, from a blackbird’s rapid twittering to the hopping of blue tits, all brought to life by Hammond. Series two, Insects, has Esfahani delightfully darting, buzzing and creeping at the harpsichord.

Add in a song cycle, Speaking Silence, exploring rest and oblivion, to which Coote brings exceptional, soft, high singing, and some interesting choral pieces, especially the ecstatic Super flumina Babylonis from the BBC Singers, and this is an attractive and unusual album.

★★★★☆

‘Michael Berkeley: Collaborations’ is released by Orchid Classics