These things endear themselves, for the most part silently, over the years. After all, you don't hear them often. Yet each return enforces the Wordsworthian feeling that in the interval they have been (to adapt) ''not as is a harmony to a deaf man's ear''. Some—''Owls'' and ''Serenade'', for instance—are peculiarly haunting, because the clarity of idea (which makes them memorable) is tinged with a colour or mood that eludes definition (and so dwells speculatively in that limbo of the mind where all half-remembered music settles down to make itself at home in silence).
The programme is arranged chronologically until the last five pieces, which form a kind of encore-group or coda to the recital. From Op. 18 to Op. 73 is quite a journey. In years, it goes from 1890 (the date of ''My love dwelt in a Northern land'', from Op. 18) to 1914: most of Elgar's creative life lies between. The imaginative freedom and technical assurance of the 1914 settings, those interestingly selected translations by Rosa Newmarch from the Russian, are attributes hard won in the period that divides these compositions from the easier charm and geniality of the early sets. Yet, returning to those, one finds a very characteristic strength, whether of melody, harmony or phrasing. ''My love dwelt in a Northern land'' also has that magical touch of the sopranos and tenors singing in octaves to the accompaniment of the other voices and with such lovely effect, in verse three.
All of this is beautifully brought off in performance. The Finzi Singers—and this seems to be habitual with them work the music into their system, hear it as though in the collective mind's ear and know then just what is required of them. The sforzando and diminuendo on the word ''heart'' (''His heart is colder than the clay'') in the last line, for instance, is here much more than an achievement of choral technique or discipline. This is a choir that does not sacrifice everything for blend or flawless homogeneity of tone: individual voices are audible from time to time. It wouldn't do in Palestrina, but in the music in which they specialize I find it preferable to the kind of tone in which the individuality of its members is subsumed in a mass identity. Their singing of Go, song of mine, which Michael Kennedy in his notes selects as Elgar's greatest work in the genre, meets the challenges with more than musical efficiency: it catches the inner spirit, the fine lift and fall of the Liebestod, the eloquent final punctuation mark of the chorded ''Go!''. A similar collection of these partsongs by Worcester singers under Donald Hunt (Hyperion, 4/88) is a two-disc issue and includes accompanied and unison pieces as well; but valuable as that is, there is a much more imaginative style at work among the Finzi Singers, and the best of the partsongs are here.'