Admirers of this most celebrated of all counter-tenors will be delighted by EMI’s reissue of records which Deller made between 1949 and 1954, after which he recorded mainly for Vanguard and subsequently, Harmonia Mundi. Vanguard, it should be said, have been doing a splendid service to Deller over the past two years with their comprehensive edition of virtually all his recordings from the 1950s and early 1960s. EMI now complement those with a selection of songs for solo voice, hardly any of which are included in the Vanguard series. All but two of the pieces are by English composers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the odd ones out are Johannes Ciconia’s O rosa bella and John Bedyngham’s setting of the same text, which belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, respectively.
Curiously, some of these recordings reveal Deller on rather less than the top form which characterized the Vanguard issues. Dowland’s Slow my tears, for instance, is marred by a persistent huskiness while certain others display a marked expressive restraint. But, almost needless to say, there is also plenty of vintage Deller here, in which category Morley’s Shakespeare settings, It was a lover and a lass and O Mistress mine, certainly belong. Comparably affecting are Robert Johnson’s Full fathom five and the celebrated anonymous setting of Desdemona’s Sing, willow, willow, willow. Most touching of all, though, is the anonymous Caleno custure me! from Henry V, which Deller sings with exquisite sensibility. That and the popular Greensleeves would be quite sufficient on their own to make me go at once in search of this disc. Sadly, the Purcell songs seem rather dated, not so much for Deller’s singing of them as for the archaic sound of the harpsichord, the tuning, and the playing of them, sometimes technically insecure and often with quaintly realized continuo lines.
Notwithstanding these reservations, the anthology is a precious one, with moments of real magic. The transfers to CD have been remastered skilfully with virtually no background noise at all. A fine photograph of the young and handsome Deller, together with an informative note about him and the music by LS, merely increased my enjoyment as well as adding to my knowledge.'