This attractive release
is built around the theme of English
songs with lyrics by women writers.
I am not sure whether this exercise
proves anything, as with one – perhaps
special – exception, all the composers
are, or were, men. Many of the examples
are infrequently encountered ... or
at any rate were new to me. Most substantial
are the Seven Sappho songs of
Ivor Gurney, which date from 1919. While
these are not the most striking or warmest-hearted
Gurney it is good to have them and I
know of no other recording. Sappho also
inspired the first of Lennox Berkeley’s
"Three Greek Songs". Of the
Ireland songs, Love and friendship,
is a marvellously sensitive response
to Emily Brontë’s words. Alastair
King is not a composer known to me,
but he writes well and Spell to bring
lost creatures home uses an attractive
lilting melody. Incidentally, quite
a number of these songs are light, almost
ballad-like: Quilter, for instance,
with the well-known June and
the much less well known Wild cherry;
Frank Bridge’s Love went a-riding,
here - and happily so - not pushed along
at such breakneck speed as sometimes
happens; and the three Montague Phillips
songs. He, like Haydn Wood, was married
to a professional ballad singer. His
songs are less popular than Wood’s and
this may be because they are too superior
as ballads but not quite good enough
to be great art songs. However that
may be, we can enjoy these three for
what they are. It would be a stony heart
which did not fall in love with this
reading of the once-popular Sing,
joyous bird - a wonderful
climax to this disc. Also light in style
is the Madeleine Dring, one of her cabaret
songs and rather more extended than
most of them. She wrote the words as
well as the music of this and its humour
and subtly (or maybe not so subtle)
suggestive nuances will delight many.
Georgina Colwell produces
an attractive tone with just an occasional
hint of strain in the upper register.
Her diction is excellent though the
booklet prints the words of all the
songs. She has also made a special study
of English song, so she clearly loves
the repertoire she tackles so affectionately.
She has, in Nigel Foster, a responsive,
sympathetic and accomplished piano accompanist
and the recording is excellent. A note
in the booklet apologises for extraneous
noise at the recording venue, a hall
in Walton-on-Thames, but I can honestly
say I detected nothing amiss. It certainly
did not interfere with my enjoyment
of a very pleasant release indeed. Strongly
recommended.
Philip L. Scowcroft
Georgina Colwell (soprano), Nigel Foster
(piano) 
