Any recording of Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings will obviously be compared with the one made by the composer and the man for whom he wrote it, Peter Pears. Indeed, Pears' voice was so extraordinary that it is hard to hear almost any of Britten's music for tenor without the ghost of his peculiarly silvery and ringing tones popping up in one's ears. Bostridge achieves the near-unthinkable and actually makes this work his own. He has the same light, choral-scholar instrument as Pears, but a completely different sense of drama and purpose. The "Nocturne" is absolutely electrifying, as Bostridge turns it into the voice of a cool young god--Apollo, perhaps--descanting on human mortality, with echoes "dying, dying, dying". He is matched with horn playing of such accuracy and purity that the overall effect would be nearly inhuman were it not for the satisfying sense of tension and release given to the whole work by Metzmacher's direction. The work is paired with Our Hunting Fathers, in which the young Daniel Harding demonstrates a perfect sense of control over Britten's early orchestral textures, making them transparent and radiant, and a perfect support for Bostridge. --Warwick Thompson