It’s always a treat to encounter a really fine performance of Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel in their alternative orchestral garb, and I’m happy to report that Neal Davies proves a memorably ardent, articulate and scrupulously sensitive exponent. Granted, his vocal timbre may not be quite as ingratiating or his tone as gloriously firm as, say, Roderick Williams’s (whose recent version with Martin Yates and the RSNO – Dutton, 8/19 – left such an enduring impression), but any fleeting reservations are soon banished by his deeply touching responsiveness to RVW’s melodic fecundity and achingly expressive treatment of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems (not for nothing was Davies awarded the Lieder Prize at the BBC’s prestigious Cardiff Singer of the World competition back in 1991). He is fortunate, too, in receiving such splendidly stylish and sympathetic backing from the Hallé under Mark Elder, who shows an acute understanding of the composer’s cannily resourceful scheme.

Turning to the main course, Elder presides over a reading of Job conspicuous for its unruffled composure, strong interpretative profile and perceptive observation. So we find that those initial ominous stirrings of Satan’s music emerge all the more arrestingly in the context of such a stately, powerfully atmospheric introduction, while the ‘Saraband of the Sons of God’ combines flowing majesty and lustrous glow. There’s bite and malice aplenty in ‘Satan’s Dance of Triumph’ – and how good to hear the violins’ bustling semiquavers cutting through the texture from two bars after fig Ff or 3'47" in the ‘Dance of Plague, Pestilence, Famine and Battle’. I very much like, too, the distinctly Holstian luminosity of the ensuing ‘Dance of the Messengers’ – and fancy the composer himself would also have approved. If scene 6’s vision of ‘Satan enthroned, surrounded by the hosts of Hell’ doesn’t quite generate the terrifying impact it has on, say, Vernon Handley’s December 1983 account with the LPO (CfP, 3/93 – and it’s a shame, by the way, about those missing brass ‘jabs’ on this newcomer earlier on at five before fig Oo or 1'43"), ‘Elihu’s Dance of Youth and Beauty’ conveys a chaste poise that comes close to the ideal (exquisite work here from guest leader David Adams). Thereafter, Elder invests the ‘Galliard of the Sons of the Morning’ with breezy zest and agreeable spring, though the work’s final, heart-stopping switch into B flat major brings with it rather less of a sense of benedictory leave-taking than some may like.

Summing up, Elder’s refreshing view rewardingly supplements Adrian Boult’s magnificently authoritative 1946 and 1970 versions (with the BBC SO and LSO respectively – the first and last of Boult’s four commercial recordings), the Handley (still hard to beat for selfless dedication and spine-tingling commitment) and Andrew Davis’s splendiferously engineered Bergen PO account (Chandos, 3/17). Boasting excitingly detailed and wide-ranging Bridgewater Hall sound, admirable booklet notes by Andrew Burn and full texts, this represents yet another notable addition to the RVW discography from these accomplished artists.