Vaughan Williams: Ten Blake Songs; On Wenlock Edge; Dove: The End; Warlock: The Curlew (2013)

This is a very fine recital of some unusual British songs. The two song cycles by Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded here by tenor Mark Padmore might be called good Vaughan Williams choices for people who don't like Vaughan Williams. They are both unusually scored, and compared with the composer's usual mode of expression they qualify as austere. Especially impressive are the Ten Blake Songs, accompanied only by a single oboe, or in three cases by nothing at all. There are many settings of Blake's Songs of Innocence and ... Read More

This is a very fine recital of some unusual British songs. The two song cycles by Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded here by tenor Mark Padmore might be called good Vaughan Williams choices for people who don't like Vaughan Williams. They are both unusually scored, and compared with the composer's usual mode of expression they qualify as austere. Especially impressive are the Ten Blake Songs, accompanied only by a single oboe, or in three cases by nothing at all. There are many settings of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience (check out the bluegrass versions by Native American songwriter Martha Redbone sometime), but few are as sparse as these, and they seem to distill Vaughan Williams' lifetime of experience with English folk song down to a deeply serious core. The opening On Wenlock Edge is less intense; Vaughan Williams definitely concentrates on poet A.E. Housman's cheery pastoral side. But the scoring for the combination of tenor, string quartet, and piano is novel. Peter Warlock's The Curlew,... Read Less

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2013, Harmonia Mundi UPC: 093046756666 SACD See All