THE COMPLETE JOHN IRELAND SONGBOOK – VOLUME 1 (Stone Records: 5060192780260)
Mark Stone, baritone; Sholto Kynoch, piano
The first CD in a four-disc series comprising the first complete recording of the songs of John Ireland:
Sea Fever; The Bells of San Marie; The Vagabond; Hope the Hornblower; The East Riding
In Praise of Neptune (version for voice and piano); Here’s to the ships!; Song from o’er the hill.
The Land of Lost Content: The lent lily; Ladslove; Goal and wicket; The vain desire; The encounter; Epilogue.
The Heart’s Desire; We’ll to the Woods No More; In Boyhood; Spring will not wait. Hawthorn Time; Spring Sorrow.
Two Songs to Poems by Rupert Brooke: The soldier; Blow out, you bugles.
Two Songs (1917-18): Blind; The Cost.
A Garrison Churchyard; Love’s Window; Billee Bowline; When I grow old; Hillo, My Bonny; Porto Rico.
Supported by the John Ireland Charitable Trust
Altogether a disc to leave one freshly enthusiastic about the writing of John Ireland, often strikingly supported by his idiomatic piano-writing.
Edward Greenfield, Gramophone Magazine, (March 2014)