If There Were Dreams to Sell - English Orchestral Songs

If There Were Dreams To Sell - English Orchestral Songs

City of London Sinfonia 

Richard Hickox 

Stephen Varcoe baritone

Originally recorded in 1988

Songs with orchestral accompaniment, all of them simply lovely, life enhancing. No Weltschmerz here, though some of the composers were doubtless influenced by the orchestral songs of Mahler. Stephen Varcoe clearly enunciates the words by Shakespeare, A. E. Housman, Rossetti and others - but if you don't catch them all, they're all in the accompanying booklet. Though there are seven composers represented here, all the songs were written during a brief period before and during World War I and evince a common wistful lyricism - you could be forgiven for thinking they were all done by the same composer. Very highly recommended.

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This is a sensitive, tasteful presentation of British art songs by a British bass-baritone and a British orchestra. What this means up front is that, if you are looking for a ringing, blow-you-away delivery of music that goes immediately for the gut (something like a charismatic, gifted, perfectly trained Italian singing the most heart-rending of Neapolitan songs), you will not find it on this CD. But there is great beauty here. It is unfortunate that the CD program is such that the least pleasing performances come first and are what you hear if you download the samples. The early tracks, up through the Elgar pieces, often seem to lie somewhat uncomfortably in Varcoe's voice, but from the Finzi "Let us Garlands Bring" set through the end of the program his voice is warm and controlled. It is not a large voice, though, and, while it is never completely lost in the orchestra, it sometimes blends into the accompaniment rather than standing out in places where I think it should be heard better. Many of these songs were originally set for piano and voice and were later orchestrated, either by the original composer or by someone else. I am of two minds about the value of the orchestrations. They are always pleasing, allowing the listener to be wrapped in the music more than would be possible in a piano-only performance. At their best they add a shimmer of sustained sound that would not be possible on a piano. Finzi's own orchestration of his "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun", which in this performance would go into my desert island collection, certainly adds to its moving beauty. But in another striking song, Butterworth's "Is My Team Ploughing?", as orchestrated by Lance Baker, I have to listen carefully to catch the crucial final line.