‘I think it is most courageous of you to go on with such little recognition. The only thing to say is that it does come finally.’ Many years on, Vaughan Williams’s supportive words to County Wicklow-born Ina Boyle (1889-1967) chime in resounding approval with the appearance of this uncommonly enterprising and exceedingly generous survey from Delphian. In a programme spanning nearly six decades, it accommodates around half of her entire song output (there are some 70 in all), and the finest offerings here leave the listener in little doubt as to Boyle’s scrupulous fidelity (to quote her good friend and fellow composer Elizabeth Maconchy) ‘to the mood and meaning underlying the words and to their shape and rhythm, never distorting them for musical effect, but allowing them to speak more fully through her music’.

In a number of items – most notably the song-cycle Looking Back, Three Songs by Walter de la Mare, ‘The Bringer of Dreams’ (to a text from Edith Sitwell’s ‘Yesterday’), George Herbert’s ‘Longing’ and Five Sacred Folksongs of Sicily – it’s not hard to detect the benign influence of RVW (Boyle took lessons with him intermittently from 1923), while her 1913 treatment of Walt Whitman’s ‘The Last Invocation’ and that pair of settings of de la Mare’s ‘A Song of Shadows’ and ‘A Song of Enchantment’ possess a very real sense of wonder and flexibility that are wholly captivating. Inspiration likewise runs high in ‘Himself and his Fiddle’, ‘A soft day, thank God!’, ‘All Souls’ Flower’, ‘They Went Forth’ and Two Christmas Songs – all of which have heaps of character, fresh-faced charm and personable warmth to commend them.

Performances throughout are exemplary, Paula Murrihy’s enchanting delivery of ‘Sleep Song’ (in Patrick Henry Pearse’s translation from the original Irish) being especially delectable – as, for that matter, is Robin Tritschler’s exquisitely deft way with the memorable setting of WB Yeats’s ‘The Stolen Child’. Vividly realistic sound, too. The knowledgeable annotation comes courtesy of Orla Shannon, and complete texts are included. Altogether a most rewarding voyage of discovery – and make sure you also check out Ronald Corp’s admirable pioneering recordings of Boyle’s First Symphony, Violin Concerto and Psalm for cello and orchestra on Dutton Epoch.