Evening Songs CDDelius. Ireland – ‘Evening Songs ‘
Delius Five Songs from the Norwegian – Sunset; Slumber Song. Birds In the High Hall Garden. Three Shelley Songs – Love’s Philosophy. Over the mountains high. Hassan – Serenade. Seven Danish Songs – Through long, long years; In the Seraglio Garden. Little Birdie. With your blue eyes
Ireland Spring Sorrow. Evening Song4. Sea Fever. The Holy Boy. Baby. The Three Ravens. Hope. Ladslove. Summer Schemes. Her Song. In Summer Woods
Julian Lloyd Webber, Jiaxin Cheng vsc John Lenehan pf
Nexos 8572902 (63’ • DDD)
Lloyd Webber and wife in English ‘songs without words’
In this interesting experiment of ‘songs without words’ by Delius and Ireland, Julian Lloyd Webber brings an especially sensitive ‘voice’ to the Barjansky-Stradivarius cello on which Alexandre Barjansky gave the premiere of Delius’s Cello Concerto in Vienna in January 1921, not simply by creating that traditional ‘singing’ tone we expect from the instrument but also in the subtle changes of register and tone he lends to his own arrangements (all bar three), with the legerdemain of John Lenehan’s delicate accompaniments. Hearing the songs of both composers without the texts, and played with such attention to contour and gradation, reminds us just how masterly and diverse both composers were in their art of the solo song, and indeed how far each composer developed his own individual concept of the genre.
In the case of Delius, the early, more Grieg-inspired ‘Sunset’, ‘Slumber Song’ and ‘Birds in the High Hall Garden’ (a first recording), and the pianistically athletic ‘Love’s Philosophy’, contrast markedly with the languorous ‘In the Seraglio Garden’ and yearning ‘Through long, long years’ from the Seven Danish Songs of 1896-97, with their sense of extended, symphonic melody and pointillistic harmonies. Among the choice of Ireland’s songs there are the old favourites ‘Sea Fever’ and ‘The Holy Boy’ (in Ireland’s own arrangement), but they are played here with an insight into that nostalgic melancholy that only Ireland knew how to articulate.
The sweep of ‘Ladslove’ and the introspection of ‘Her Song’ are also deeply affecting in this idiom, as are the two duets with Jiaxin Cheng of Ireland’s two part-songs, ‘Evening Song’ and ‘In Summer Woods’. As the title of the disc suggests, this is an ideal collection to while away the summer evenings.
Jeremy Dibble
