This survey of music for baritone and orchestra includes songs written between 1903 and 1935, and includes a duet featuring soprano Ailish Tynan from Parry's opera Guenever, which dates from 1886. Works by composers such as Bax, Boughton and Bainton are heard and, in Boughton's case, we are treated to three songs from his early Kipling settings Songs of the English'. These and many other delights are on offer, and the combined forces of Roderick Williams and the BBC Concert Orchestra under Martin Yates give impassioned performances of these glorious works.

Bax
The Song of the Dagger (The Bard of the Dimbovitza)
Welcome, Somer (Geoffrey Chaucer)
Viking-Battle-Song (Fiona Macleod)

Ireland
Sea Fever (John Masefield)
When Lights go Rolling Round the Sky (James Vila Blake)
Youth's Spring-Tribute (D G Rossetti)
The Holy Boy: a Carol of the Nativity (Herbert S Brown)
Hope the Hornblower (Sir Henry Newbolt)
If There Were Dreams to Sell (Thomas Lovell Beddoes)
When I Am Dead, My Dearest (Christina Rossetti)

Dyson
Valour (John Bunyan)
Morning and Evening (Isaac Watts)
The Seekers (John Masefield)
Hymn to the Stars (William Habington)
Praise (George Herbert)

Boughton
Fair is Our Lot (Rudyard Kipling)
The Coastwise Lights (Our Brows are Bound with Spindrift') (Rudyard Kipling)
The Price of Admiralty (We Have Fed Our Seas') (Rudyard Kipling)

Bainton
Christmas Eve (Edward Carpenter)
Little Heart within Thy Cage (Edward Carpenter)

Parry
King Arthur's Farewell to Guenever (Una Taylor)AT

BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA
Martin Yates (conductor)
Roderick Williams (baritone)
ATAilish Tynan (soprano)

Recorded at The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford, 5-6 June 2007

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"Roderick Williams ... is here on peak form: wonderfully clear diction, steady, even tone throughout his range, an exceptional alertness to mood and nuance. His voice has become a real pleasure to hear, the top especially thrilling, Add to that a willingness to explore esoteric repertoire such as this, and we are greatly privileged."
"... a labour of love duly rewarded in performance."
Piers Burton-Page, International Record Review, January 2008