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Fanfare

The illustrations of England that appear on the front and reverse of the booklet sum up, surely, every person’s idea of what England is: sheep in fields with a parish church in the background, greenery everywhere. The songs on this twofer reflect that in sound, as this is the epitome of the perfect English pastoral mode of expression. And how better to do it than in song? Our guides are two fabulous singers. Little introduction is required, surely, for Sarah Leonard; baritone Johnny Herford appeared on a previous disc of music by Hugill I reviewed in Fanfare 41:3.

The music of Ivor Gurney speaks of free-flowing lyricism. The seven Sappho Songs set William Bliss Carman. Three of the songs had been published by Oxford University Press before the balance was discovered by Richard Carder amongst Gurney’s unpublished manuscripts. The air of England does indeed blow through Lesbos in the first song, “Soft was the wind”; the third, “The Apple Orchard,” is lightness personified in song, and Nigel Foster’s accompaniment mirrors this perfectly. Leonard’s voice is perfectly suited to the luminous “Hesperus,” the fourth song, a song apparently much admired by Finzi. The love consummation, which occurs in the fifth song, is beautifully conveyed by the key area of F# Major; the sense of Rückblick in the final song is unmistakable. This is a remarkable set of songs.

Born in Surrey, Will Carnell studied with Ruth Gipps at Trinity College, London. Here, the poet is Housman, the poems taken from A Shropshire Lad. The compositional hand at work here is light and deft in “O see how thick the goldcup flowers” and “Bredon Hill,” the first and third songs, and Herford sings with a great deal of evident relish, underpinned by Foster’s fluent piano playing. Herford’s low register proves to be firm and resilient in “If truth in hearts,” but perhaps the most musically impressive song is “Where in the moon the long road lies,” with its sense of internal journeying.

Michael (Mike) Watts is a new name to me. Born in 1937, he transcended a career in accountancy to devote his time to composition (and to live in Mallorca). The song-cycle Gypsy Girl was premiered in 2015 and sets Paul Archer, texts inspired by the Spanish flamenco (and indeed there is a Spanish flavor to some of the music). The delicate, almost Scriabinesque piano opening to “Silver Night’’ is hypnotic; the entrance of the voice changes the heady feel to one more earthy because of the pitches chosen, which take the Scriabin influence in a different direction, fascinatingly. The piano repeated notes of the chill “When the cold wind comes” are effective word-painting. Perhaps less memorable than Carnell’s contribution, there is nevertheless much to enjoy here, and Leonard is faultless.

Croydon-born Dennis Wickens has composed seven song-cycles so far. He studied with John McCabe in 1987. The song-cycle The Heart Oppressed has been recorded by the present pianist and Huw Williams in a disc for the English Poetry and Song Society. Herford is in fine, virile voice for the declamations of the firs: song, “A Greeting,” of the song cycle on the present disc, This Life (to words by W. H. Davies). The fragile “The Example,” which cogitates on a butterfly and how to, like the butterfly, find joy anywhere balances the busy “Leisure” (“What is this life if, full of care / We have no time to stand and stare?”). Wickens is a fine composer, creating a real sense of expectant stasis in “The Lonely Dreamer.”

The second disc changes the format and presents individual songs instead of cycles. Composer Simon Willink therefore is represented by only one song, Sea and Sky, a setting of one of his own poems. The music is restrained and unhurried. Willink died recently (2015) and the inclusion of this song indicates some exploration of his musical legacy might be in order. Herford’s sense of the long line pays huge dividends in this performance. Neatly, Willink’s song is dedicated to David Crocker, who himself provides the next two songs. The first, A Great Time, sets the tramp-poet (hence the “Super-Tramp” of the title) W. H. Davies most beautifully: The close of the song is beautifully judged, both by composer and pianist on this recording; the companion, My Whole World, exudes nobility.

The song by Sulyen Caradon (pen-name of Richard Carder) is of sublime delicacy, Sarah Leonard’s vocal line slowly unfolding itself over droplets of piano sound in the song Silver. Lincolnshire-based composer Brian Blyth Daubney (a student of Kenneth Leighton) now composes in his retirement. The five songs here are split between the two singers. There is a moment of Schubert’s Gretchen through a fairground mirror in Bredon Hill (more Housman) before the baritone voice sings in a most effective unaccompanied soliloquy. There’s no missing the horse invocation of the setting of Robert Browning’s “Boot and Saddle” (splendidly done by Foster). It is Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death” that Leonard tackles, with blanched tone against a slow, high-lying tread in the piano. Time stops in this song, one of the most impressive on the whole twofer.

A student of Lennox Berkeley, Graham Garton has held the position of director of the Academy of Music in Bermuda, among others. He has written more than 700 pieces. His song Leisure is arresting for its low, grumbling piano, frequent hiatuses, and declamatory vocal line. The music can move from second to second in style, and yet not seem contradictory to either text or compositional integrity. That sense of humor that hangs around the edges of Leisure is more explicit in the opening piano gestures of The Eagle; whereas the poignancy of the first line of The Song of the Secret, “Where is beauty?”, comes across as a heartfelt cry from Sarah Leonard.

The warm harmonies of Frank Harvey’s Dawn surely could only hail from the UK. The legato lines are beautifully done by Herford, who also captures the depth of feeling of The Convergence of the Twain, to a poem written by Thomas Hardy on the sinking of the Titanic. The song Remember is inspired by Dido’s Lament, and there is indeed that feeling of drooping to the music as well as lachrymose leave-taking.

It’s nice to see Robert Hugill’s music here (his Navona disc Quickening was notable). The two Gitanjali songs set Rabindranath Tagore. If Leonard is perhaps not at her most secure in the first (“Gitanjali XIII”), Herford is at his best in The Pillar.

Finally, there comes Janet Oates, whose intention to treat voice and piano as absolutely equal partners results in the splendid play of Bee Dance, a song that slowly reveals an undercurrent of strong lyricism. Leonard and Foster are indeed equals in a song that seems to contain huge amounts of imagination. There is something of a modem setting of a folk melody to Money (which includes some extraneous tappings). Setting Sitwell, The King of China’s Daughter combines wit with a fascinating trajectory in which the singer moves from an inability to fully articulate herself through to fully-fledged lyricism. Finally, The Cupboard is a song that relishes its bitonal exploits, not to mention its inclusion of various percussive effects (clapping, tapping, and suchlike). It makes a perfect close to a simply lovely collection.