Hubert Parry thought very highly of his pupil Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), singling out for approval one of his early settings (‘Marie at the Window’) in the context of an article on English song published in 1888 that mentions ‘very young rising composers … who have a healthy feeling for declamation of their own language, and are capable of being inspired by genuine poetry, and doing things which are musically interesting and refined’. Ten years later, the publication of Somervell’s song-cycle based on Tennyson’s emotionally charged monodrama Maud (No 6, ‘Maud has a garden’, was withheld until the 1907 revised edition) brought him acclaim – deservedly so given its melodic fecundity, tenderness of expression and shrewdly plotted scheme, allied to a most satisfying thematic resourcefulness that attests to its creator’s familiarity with, say, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte. Superbly partnered by Susie Allan (whose deft touch and ingratiating tone are a constant source of pleasure), Roderick Williams gives an outstandingly sympathetic rendering, his consistently perceptive characterisation especially potent when the darkly oppressive tenor of the opening song (‘I hate the dreadful hollow’) returns with a vengeance from No 10 (‘The fault was mine’) onwards.

Maud proved a tough act to follow, and while there are many incidental felicities to be found in Somervell’s tastefully wrought A Shropshire Lad from 1904 (‘White in the moon the long road lies’, for instance, is as touching as it is haunting), Housman’s rueful melancholy barely registers; in fact, the whole sequence inhabits a by and large serenely untroubled landscape far removed from the piercing intensity of those inspired settings to come by Butterworth, Vaughan Williams, Gurney and Ireland. (The actual tunes, I should add, do securely lodge in the brain.) Once again, no criticism can be levelled at Williams and Allan, who also lavish affectionate advocacy upon both A Kingdom by the Sea (a mellifluous adaptation from 1901 of four stanzas from Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee) and ‘Shepherd’s Cradle Song’ (a bewitching lullaby inscribed to the American soprano Lillian June Bailey).

Boasting astute and thought-provoking essays by Jeremy Dibble and Roderick Williams himself, as well as complete texts, Somm’s presentation leaves nothing to be desired. Pleasingly rich sound and truthful balance, too.