The remarkable thing about this first volume of the collected Delius songs, quite apart from the quality of Mark Stone’s singing, is that so few of them are identifiable as the work of Delius. That is the more surprising since most of them were inspired by Norway and one might have expected Grieg-like chords to point towards the mature Delius.

To one’s surprise, the majority of the songs are relatively fast-moving with straightforward harmonic schemes. The results are always attractive, if not very Delian. The first group of seven Norwegian-inspired songs includes ‘Twilight Fancies’, one of the best-known of all Delius songs, leading to two vigorous songs, one in triple-time, and an easily lyrical cradle song.

In the first English group, the setting of ‘It was a lover and his lass’ is fresh and straightforward, as is ‘Spring, the sweet spring’ to words by Thomas Nashe, later memorably set by Britten in his Spring Symphony. ‘They are not long’, to words by Ernest Dowson, is a setting with piano of what later became the final section of Delius’s Songs of Farewell, and the dashing setting of Shelley’s ‘Love’s Philosophy’, though not as stirring as Roger Quilter’s glorious setting, is also delightful, with a neat pay-off. The third Shelley song is also passionate in a way one might not expect of Delius.

The baritone Mark Stone has a remarkable voice, firm and finely focused, which he uses seductively over the widest dynamic and expressive range. His singing is ideally matched by the piano-playing of Stephen Barlow, the whole cleanly and clearly recorded, a credit to Stone Records. One looks forward to other volumes in the series.