The unenticing frontispiece of this disc is dominated by the words PRISON CYCLE, but with a sketch of Rawsthorne amiably holding a glass of beer. Moreover, although Alan Bush’s name is given precedence, he only provides settings of three of the five Prison songs, the whole of the rest of the recital, except for the Three Folk Songs of John McCabe, is entirely of Rawsthorne’s music. As Trevor Holst points out in the booklet-notes, one thinks of Rawsthorne primarily as an orchestral and instrumental composer, so it is not surprising that although all these settings bring appealingly lyrical melodic vocal lines, the musical substance of each song is often found in the piano accompaniments, here sensitively played by Keith Swallow.

The sombre opening Prison Cycle, with the settings shared by Rawsthorne and Bush, uses poems by the pre-war German Socialist poet, Ernst Toller, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, and later committed suicide in 1939. The soprano soloist, Alison Wells (singing in German) hauntingly evokes his claustrophobic cell (‘Six steps forward, Six steps back’), the way the everyday objects which surround him eventually become friendly from their very familiarity, and the fascination of a pair of swallows perching on the barred window – before they are shot by the prison guards.

Fortunately the mood is then lightened by five Tzu-Yeh Songs, translations from the Chinese, which in their English format have little oriental flavour but much charm. The following Scena Rustica, which offers an intimate dialogue for soprano and harp, suits Judith Buckle’s voice less well, mainly because of an intrusive vibrato.

Of the tenor songs, the gentle Carol and the lively medieval Two Fish (‘the adult’rous Sargus’ and ‘the constant Cantharus’) stand out, and Martyn Hill is in excellent form. Two early piano pieces act as an interlude, before the delightful tenor triptych, Three Folksongs, by John McCabe, winningly sung by Martin Hindmarsh. These have a nicely tailored clarinet obbligato, and the recital closes with a witty arrangement of John Peel, with its droll hornpipe payoff.

The recording was made in a church and the comparatively close microphones, combined with the resonance, are not as flattering to the singers as they are to the piano, sometimes giving a strenuous edge to the tenor fortissimi and emphasising the vibrato of both sopranos under similar pressure, though at lower dynamic levels their voices can be delicate and sweet-timbred. But, reservations apart, this is all repertoire that deserves a place in the catalogue.

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [4/2004]

Performers: Alison Wells (soprano), Judith Buckle (soprano), Martyn Hill (tenor), Martin Hindmarsh (tenor), Lucy Wakeford (harp), Nicholas Turner (clarinet), Keith Swallow (piano), Alan Cuckston (piano).