Roderick Williams, baritone; Susie Allan, piano

John Ireland: Great Things; Sea Fever; In Boyhood; Youth’s Spring Tribute
George Butterworth: Six songs from A Shropshire Lad
Ian Venables: A Kiss; Flying Crooked
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Silent Noon; The Vagabond
Ivor Gurney: Black Stitchel; Lights Out; Captain Stratton’s Fancy
Roger Quilter: Weep you no more, sad fountains
Peter Warlock: Jillian of Berry
E J Moeran: The Pleasant Valley
Benjamin Britten: The Salley Gardens; The Ploughboy
Gerald Finzi: Come away, Death; Who is Silvia?; Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; O Mistress Mine; It was a lover and his lass
Ivor Gurney: Sleep

This wonderful Celebration of English Song was recorded especially for SOMM by baritone Roderick Williams deliciously partnered here by Susie Allan in a collection to gladden the hearts of all lovers of English music. This splendidly wide-ranging collection features two well-loved song cycles, Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad and Finzi’s Let us Garlands bring. It also includes some of the best-known English songs of the periods before and after World War II – Ireland’s world-famous Sea Fever and Great Things and The Kiss and Flying Crooked, from Ian Venables – now widely regarded as the finest living English composer of art songs and a true successor to Benjamin Britten, represented here by two irresistible settings of English folk-songs, The Salley Gardens and The Ploughboy. Also included are songs by Quilter, Gurney, Warlock and E.J. Moeran.

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/celebrating-english-song/