The record claims a number of 'firsts': all, in fact, except the Schubert and Schumann duets, are said to be recorded for the first time. The jolly title (not particularly apt except to provoke grumpy contradiction) is also the title of the set of traditional songs arranged by Christopher Brown, with which the recital ends: good-natured melodies, modestly ingenious accompaniments, and a touch of individuality in the wistful flavouring of I will give my love an apple. But it's another wistfulness that stays in the mind when the recital is over. In 1937 the 24-year-old Benjamin Britten set a strange, enigmatic poem called Mother Comfort by the man who was later to provide the libretto for Peter Grimes, Montagu Slater, and its refrain, ''Will you be Mother Comfort or shall I?'', seems to imply such a desolate need for comfort that it can no more be banished from the memory than can the face of a neglected child. For that and the other, more readily indentifiable, pieces by Britten the record is welcome.
The Milhaud Elegies, with their gentle, sad dissonances and mild, non-committal style, suit the singers well, as indeed do the English songs. But the initial impression, in the Haydn Duetti, was not, in my experience, a happy one: the slender voices, the complacent prettiness, the mincing drawing-room manners I'm afraid arouse the barbarian in me, and I would willingly have heard no more. Neil Mackie, as we know from his solo recordings, is a lyric tenor of fine accomplishment; his wife, the soprano Kathleen Livingston, heard here, sounds light of voice, accurate and musical but wanting colour and security. John Blakely plays well throughout, the recorded sound is appropriately intimate, the presentation attractive and useful.'