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Musical Opinion

Betty Roe is an unsung heroine of British music, a very gifted composer who has tended to concentrate on smaller-scaled works, in particular a (by now) relatively large output of songs, making her one of the few British composers in this genre not to be at all overshadowed by the achievements of Benjamin Britten.

Here is a wonderfully-performed and excellent-recorded album of no fewer than 19 of her song settings, ranging from quite short individual songs to the title track of this CD, ‘The Silver Hound’, a kind short cantata-cum-canticle (to veer towards Britten again!) to words specially written by Ursula Vaughan Williams. I can do no better than quote from Ian Sneddon’s notes: ‘The poem follows the structure of Jacqes’ Seven Ages of Man speech from ‘As You Like It’, with the singer sending the hound back in time to fetch events from his life. Roe matches each period paring the music down to solo voice for the soldier as he recalls the horror of war, followed by a meditation for the horn, here played by the composer’s grandson’ (Daniel Beer). It is a marvellous work, and if it — in terms of instrumentation cannot help but recall Britten’s ‘Still Falls the Rain’ (also concern­ed with war), Betty Roe is sufficiently distinguished in her individuality to with­stand fully any such comparison.

One also found it difficult not to express a wry smile at ‘The Critic’ (shades, here, of Stanford!), the composer in very different vein, but throughout this enthralling and enlightening disc my attention — and my emotions — were fully held.

This may be a belated tribute to a very fine and exceptionally gifted composer, but it is none the less most welcome to the point where one hopes it will lead to more performances and recordings of music of such inherent and genuine quality.   (awarded five stars)