It would be a great pleasure to recommend this without reservation, the performances being good and the songs endearing themselves further with every return to them. I do, however, find the recorded sound particularly unsatisfactory. Comparisons with all available versions show them to be clearer and more immediate, and this is especially so with the record by the Finzi Singers whose very similar programme makes theirs the most obvious competitor. The Finzi’s performances are not always preferable – their tempo for the haunting Serenade, for instance, is slower than suggested by Elgar’s marking, allegretto even when qualified by comodo, and the new version improves on that – but with every playing of this present recital the first reaction is to wish for brighter, clearer and closer sound.
If the four items included here but not in the Finzi Singers’ programme were particularly valuable that would help to tilt the balance of choice, but on the whole I find them probably the least attractive pieces. All are for men’s voices: The Reveille from 1907, The Wanderer and the marching-song Zut! Zut! Zut! with words by Elgar under a pseudonym, both from 1923, and (most imaginative of these) The Herald from 1925. All are well sung, though The Reveille is hard on the first tenors. The Finzi Singers have no masterpieces to offer in their place, but all (the homely first two numbers in Op. 18 and How Calmly the Evening, 1907) strike me as preferable to Zut! Zut! Zut!'