The days are long gone when Victorian ballads could expect to arouse wide attention. Yet things have surely gone too far when such a prime example of the genre as Balfe’s ìKillarneyî can be found only in vintage recordings by the likes of John McCormack. A warm welcome, then, for this new collection, which includes 17 other examples of Balfe’s easy lyricism, none of which duplicates the contents of a 2008 collection of Balfe ballads issued by Victorian Opera.

The whole genre may not represent high art, of course, and what we have here includes such poetic efforts as Alfred Bunn’s ìO smile as thou wert wont to smileî (from the opera The Daughter of St Mark), which Punch lampooned mercilessly in the 1840s. However, other numbers such as ìI’m a merry Zingaraî and ìThe Blighted Flowerî were highly popular in their day and well deserve a hearing now. Sally Silver sounds a little twee in the opening ìAh! Would that I could love thee lessî and elsewhere she might have benefited from a shade more expression. Far better that, though, than that the expression be exaggerated. Moreover, her charming soprano falls more comfortably on the ear than the voices on that Victorian Opera collection (though the latter is better documented). Charm is very much the order of the day here, and is displayed no less admirably in Richard Bonynge’s devoted piano accompaniment. It’s good news indeed to hear that there’s a William Vincent Wallace collection to follow.