Thursday 3 January 2013

English Journey Songs

The English Poetry and Song Society has issued a new disc of songs, recorded by the society's two retiring presidents Jane Manning and Stephen Roberts with Terence Allbright at the piano. The repertoire includes songs by 10 composers from the society, Chris Brown, Sulyen Caradon, Brian Daubney, Graham Garton, Frank Harvey, John Jordan, Geoffrrey Lawrence, J Hubert Smith, Mike Watts, and yours truly Robert Hugill.


Texts for the songs are, generally, classic English poetry with works by William Barnes, William Blake, Anne Bradstreet, Rupert Brooke, Emily and Anne Bronte, Hartley Coleridge, Ivor Gurney, Thomas Hardy, F.W. Harvey, J.R. Heron, G.M. Hopkins, A.E.Housman, T. Nash, A.S.J. Tessimond, Humbert Wolfe and Jeremy Watts.


My own group of songs on the disc sets poetry by Ivor Gurney (Song and Pain, To His Love, Song and Requiem) and two of them were in the finals of the English Poetry and Song Society's Ivor Gurney competition.

The English Poetry and Song Society was founded by the poet and amateur musician, Alfred Warren, in 1983, after hearing a recital by the late baritone John Carol Case who became the first president. Subsequent presidents have been Meriel Dickinson, Ian Partridge and then Jane Manning and Stephen Roberts. The society's current presidents are Sarah Leonard and Stephen Varcoe.

The disc contains 27 songs in all, and is available privately, so if anyone is interested please contact me.

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