Interest here centres on the songs by Vaughan Williams and Theodore Chanler. The Four Last Songs were written between 1954 and 1958 as part of two projected cycles, yet they go together well, the deeply affectionate, personal, second and third songs being 'framed' by longer settings of poems with a classical reference. All are to words by the composer's wife, Ursula, and are gently written for a gentle voice of medium range and for a pianist whose hands move sensitively without being in search of any startling effect. Chanler's Eight Epitaphs, settings of verses by Walter de la Mare, are similarly modest in musical idiom. Though skilfully varied and sometimes requiring a high degree of technical accomplishment in the pianist, they are careful to keep attention fixed on the poignant and strangely authentic-sounding words. For these alone, the record is welcome.
It comes live from our sadly missed Wigmore Hall, and I wish I could say that I was present on the occasion. In 'the flesh' the concert may have had a quality lacking on the recording, for this does not come across as communicative singing or even as having the variety and personal distinctiveness necessary to make a recital memorable. The voice has richness and depth, beautiful in softer passages, not entirely steady in some of the louder ones. In the first song, Wolf's Gesang Weylas, I thought of Elena Gerhardt, but then dusting down her 1931 HMV Wolf Society recording one could feel immediately the presence of a more expressive, flavoursome art. The ''urralte Wasser'' carries a thrill in the words and tone, and the last section makes its fine crescendo from a beautifully quiet start. Or try von Otter (DG (CD) 423 666-2GH, 6/89) and again there is much greater subtlety and the felt presence of the needful rapt quality. Nimmersatte Liebe which follows in Glenda Maurice's recital is similarly straight-faced, and Fussreise has no spring in the step beyond what is put into it by Graham Johnson. The songs by Joseph Marx also need more character if they are not to sound like decadent exercises in an outworn tradition. The recording is technically successful enough, though it is a pity that the one moment of slight disturbance in the hall should be at the start of Vaughan Williams's ''Tired'', loveliest of all these songs.'