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While they were alive Britten and Stravinsky had the rare privilege of conducting their complete output on disc - but there are always gaps. For whatever reason, Britten didn't record some of his scores written for the BBC, from which this CD brings usprograms aimed largely at American and Canadian audiences. . All the music is largely unheard since the 1940s, and sometimes it's quite entertainingly jazzy. Having returned home in 1942 and successfully registered as a conscientious objector, the composer regained his footing musically, quickly composing the Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings and preparing for his great breakthrough with Peter Grimves.But the music he composed for the BBC occupies the fringes of his output. Here's the program performed here:Roman Wall BluesAn American In England: Women of BritainBritain to America: Where do we go from here?On the Frontier: Incidental musicThe Ascent of F6: Incidental musicBy far the most extensive score (17 separate tracks) is the incidental music for a radio broadcast of a play written by W. H. Auden and Christopher Ishwerwood in 1936, The Ascent of F6. At least oneauthority has described it as `a substantial score', that Britten wrote with `iron self-discipline' following the news of the tragically early death of his mother. It includes the Funeral Blues, now often performed as part of the group of cabaret songs. Hearing this collection of musical items and scattered text is totally bewildering. Some of the words are verse, others dialogue. The musical idiom ranges from ragtime piano to Tibetan-like chants. Each bit is fun, but the whole is all but impossible to figure out - one can see why Britten didn't want to record his score without the entire play. But the one lasting number, Funeral blues, here a choral number but usually sung as a solo, is set to Auden's great elegy, which begins,Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.You may remember it as a moving speech in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. As for the plot of this "tragedy in two acts," an Amazon review of the printed play says, "F6 is a mountain dividing two regions in Sudoland, a fictional land known for its coffee trade. Great Britain, which has kept a stronghold over the native population for decades, now finds itself threatened by Ostnia, a rival nation that occupies some of the territory. Wanting to make a political statement, both countries aim to scale F6, a rock face thought insurmountable. Local legend has the mountain occupied by a demon that makes it impossible for any person to climb. The Ostnians are using this tale to their advantage, telling natives that the first White man to climb F6 will rule all of Sudoland for a thousand years." the idiom is experimental, Marxist, and Freudian. The authors cannot resist satirical touches that ill suit the tragedy, but they were both flying high and fearless at age thirty.Auden and Isherwood collaborated on a later political play in 1938, On the Frontier, (9 separate tracks) about which I can say little (my download includes no program notes), but the music is generally martial and rather halfhearted. Britten's musical contributions to an American in England, a series produced by Edward R. Murrow during the war, is represented by 11 tracks, each introduced by a snippet of reportage from London during the war. Britten said that he wanted his music to "serve the living," an ethic that overrode his opposition to war in this case. Here the speaker sounds too comfy and not at all like someone reporting the agonies of combat. the two remaining numbers, roman Wall Blues and Where Do We Go From Here? are songs in the same cabaret vein as Funeral Blues and almost as good as it. the brevity of each track can be seen from the fact that 43 tracks fit on a single 78 min. CD.The musical performers are all quite good, and the NMC label apparently has produced three other programs of rare and lost Britten scores, mostly of this ilk. It's a nice gift to Britten's devoted following in his centenary year, but not much here deserves more than one listen.Huw Watkins (piano), Samuel West (narrator), Andrew Kennedy (tenor), Jean Rigby (mezzo soprano) & Mary Carewe (mezzo soprano)Ex Cathedra & Hallé, Sir Mark Elder & Jeffrey Skidmore