The concert was given under the auspices of the English Poetry and Song Society, after a competition designed to commemorate the publication of A Shropshire Lad in 1896 (“Still alive at 110; Shropshire lads are now old men,” Hugh Kingsmill might be murmuring from the dim beyond). And indeed there is a slight sense here of dim conservation. Stephen Duro clearly deserves his prize in the song competition, showing that “Is my team ploughing?” can still elicit a live musical response, yet the general level, as represented by the other four of the year’s composers, is modestly safe and that seems about the limit. I suspect it’s a seam now bare.

The settings by Bax, Moeran and Benjamin Burrows have their merits (particularly attractive is Moeran’s “When I came last to Ludlow”) but they don’t match the poems in the sheer (important) quality of being memorable. As for Somervell’s pioneering song-cycle, it does possess that quality, but in a way which seems to have very little to do with the poems’ own: its well made Anglicised Schumann-Brahms is not an appropriate idiom.Housman with his sting removed.

Stephen Foulkes is a good, honest singer: firm tone, not rich but well projected, with clear diction and sensible (though rarely vivid) expression. The pianist, David Bednall, plays well but is rather upstaged by his instrument, which is the Steinway used in London concerts by Rachmaninov – and both are somewhat recessed in the balance as recorded. The CD is one of an enterprising series, closely linked with the EPSS which has the admirable purpose of dedication to “the performance, publication and recording of English Art Songs”.