Butterworth - Songs from a Shropshire Lad

Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

Naxos 8572426 Buy now

Butterworth Six Songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ – Loveliest of trees; When I was one-and-twenty; Look not in my eyes; Think no more, lad; The lads in their hundreds; Is my team ploughing? Bredon Hill and other songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ – Bredon Hill; O fair enough are sky and plain; When the lad for longing sighs; On the idle hill of summer; With rue my heart is laden. Folksongs from Sussex - Yonder stands a lovely creature; A blacksmith went out; Sowing the seeds of love; A lawyer went out one day; Come my own one; The cuckoo; A brisk young sailor courted me; Seventeen come Sunday; Roving in the dew; The true lover’s farewell; Tarry trousers. I will make you brooches. I fear thy kisses. Requiescat.

Roderick Williams bar Iain Burnside pf

Naxos 8 572426 (52’)

Intelligent and personable performances from this thoughtful partnership

The selection may not be as generous as Mark Stone’s recent complete survey (warmly welcomed by John Steane, 6/10), but no lover of British song should miss hearing what Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside have to bring to this gorgeous repertoire. Their readings of Butterworth’s two sublime Housman cycles are, on balance, the most consistently stylish and illuminating to have come my way since those of Bryn Terfel and Malcolm Martineau (a true modern classic on DG, 8/95). The great Welsh bass-baritone may still have the edge in terms of strength of character, winning communicative flair and interpretative daring (his extraordinarily soft pianissimos in “Is my team ploughing?” never fail to activate the goose bumps), but Williams’s engagingly fresh delivery, secure technique, eloquent turn of phrase and variety of tone are a joy throughout, as is his crystal-clear diction. Burnside, too, is at his customarily unmannered, attentive best, the crispness and poise of his pianism a pleasure to encounter.

Granted, the presentation is no match for Stone Records’ handsomely designed and comprehensively annotated booklet (the full texts have to be downloaded from a separate link on the Naxos website). When it comes to sound quality, though, Mike Clements’s marvellously transparent, truthfully balanced sound falls far more sympathetically on the ear (the rival Stone production is a touch too hollow and distant for my own tastes). An enticingly low price-tag further enhances the appeal of what may well be Williams’s finest disc to date. Recommended with enthusiasm.

Andrew Achenbach