(Reprinted from Gramophone March 2008)

Click to see review in pdf format as published

Editor’s Choice

Vaughan Williams
Seven Songs from 'The Pilgrim's Progress'.
Ten Songs from 'Hugh the Drover'.
Sir John in Love - Greensleeves; See the chariot at hand
Sarah Fox sop, Juliette Pochin mez, Andrew Staples ten, Roderick Williams bar, lain Bumside
Albion © ALB001 (60' • DDD)

The songs make doubly absorbing listening as they offer a glimpse into the composer’s initial thoughts’

According to the booklet, no fewer than 11 world premieres adorn this first release from Albion Records, the RVW Society's own label (a companion volume of rare songs is imminent, and piano transcriptions of Job and A London Symphony are also in the pipeline). The 10 songs from Hugh the Drover (the first ofVWs six operas, penned between 1911 and 1914 but not orchestrated until after the war) were arranged by die composer in 1924, the same year as its belated first performance under Malcolm Sargent, and make doubly absorbing listening as they offer us a glimpse into the composer's initial thoughts (VW continued to revise the opera right up to 1956). Particularly heartwarming here are die two extended love duets for Hugh and Mary ("Ah! Love I've found you" and "Hugh my lover"), the latter a cunning conflation of the most tenderly lyrical music to be found in Act 2 (culminating in die ecstatic "0 the sky shall be our roof).

Next come two numbers from Sir John in Love, including the sublime setting of Ben Jonson's "See the chariot at hand" from Act 4. Seven songs from The Pilgrim's Progress make up the remainder and find Roderick Williams and Sarah Fox both ingratiating in tone and pleasingly articulate. In fact, all four singers acquit themselves with composer's initial thoughts' credit (though Andrew Staples's Hugh is no match for such legendary protagonists as Tudor Davies or James Johnston), while lain Burnside's accompaniments are past praise in their scrupulous sensitivity.

Beautifully produced and attractively presented, this likeable anthology deserves to do well - and if it fosters further exploration o fVW's operatic output, so much the better!

Andrew Achenbach

......and from BBC Magazine

Vaughan Williams
The Sky Shall Be Our Roof:
Songs from the operas
Hugh the Drover, Sir John in Love and The Pilgrim's Progress

Sarah Fox (soprano),
Juliette Pochin (mezzo-soprano),
Andrew Staples (tenor),
Roderick Williams (baritone),
lain Burnside (piano)

Albion ALBOO1 60:00 mins

BBC Music Direct - £13.99

Click to see review in pdf format as published.

Here's a fine launch for Albion. the label established by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society to showcase his less familiar music - though thankfully this material is no longer so rare. Frustrated by the lack of access audiences had to his operas, Vaughan 'Williams arranged these selections for small- scale performance with piano accompaniment, fluently played here by lain Burnside. They may still provide intriguing 'tasters' for these splendid works.

Some stand a little awkwardly without orchestral underpinnings, particularly those from Hugh the Drover (the 1924 original, otherwise available only on Pearl's abridged original-cast disc). It's surprising, though, how much impact Hugh and Mary's heady closing duet retains without the Puccinian orchestration.

In others, too, the exposed vocal line gains something, reminding you just what marvellous melodies this man could write - and how well they repay performers of this quality.

Sarah Fox and Roderick 'Williams are seasoned Vaughan 'Williams exponents, her clear, soaring tone ideal for Mary, his gendy mellow baritone for the Pilgrim's Progress songs, Juliene Pochin's light- hued mezzo makes 'Song of the 'Water of Life' surprisingly sexy. Andrew Staples is an elegant lyric tenor, but Hugh the Drover's best exponents, creator Tudor Davies and James Johnscon, were robust spinto roughnecks; Staples' genteel diction suggests Hugh the Quantity Surveyor. He shines, though, in the radiant Elizabethan lyric 'See the Chariot' from Sir John in Love. Altogether, recommendable to enthusiasts, agreeable listening generally.

Michael Scott Rehan

PERFORMANCE ****
SOUND ****

(Reprinted from BBC Magazine, February 2008)