If the performances were better they might support the music, if the music were better it might protect the performances. Elgar, it seems to me, only very rarely approximates to his best self in these pieces. Among the part-songs the two clear exceptions are the setting of Rosa Newmarch's translation of Death on the Hills and the Serenade (''Dreams all too brief'') but then I have heard both, particularly the Serenade, better done than they are here. The choir have probably given great pleasure to audiences in their time: the trouble is that on records the standard now is so high that even quite minor faults of balance or a slight fluffing round the edges has to bear comment, and unless there is some strong compensating virtue it will put the record out of court. The first item, O Happy Eyes, is hardly convincing: some nice tone but imperfect balance and unclear words. Even so it gets benefit of the doubt till item three (To her Beneath whose Steadfast Star) makes it clear that there ought to have been more polishing. So one turns to the soloist, and with some confidence too, for John Brecknock goes down in memory as one of the best English lyric-tenors of the post-war years. He is still a good, honest singer with a decent legato and a clear tone, but the voice appears to have lost much of its bloom, colour and ring, and there is little that makes an impression of imaginative involvement in the singing of these songs. The accompaniment of the Shepherd's Song especially has a remorseless literal correctness and is heavy-handed and unimaginative too. Nor, as one searches for some positive point to end on, does the recorded sound or the cramped print of the booklet provide ground for recommendation.'