Illuminating connections: in Kin, Lotte Betts Dean & Joseph Havlat explore folksongs from across Europe and North America

Kin: Vaughan Williams, Moeran, Grainger, Britten, Doreen Senior, Canteloube, Bartok, Michael Finissy, Josephine Stephenson, Louise Drewett, Joseph Havlat, Isabella Gellis, Ruth Wall; Lotte Betts Dean, Joseph Havlat; DELPHIAN
Reviewed 19 October 2026

Two young Australians and a programme of folksongs culled from across Europe and North America conspire to create a programme by turns thoughtful and moving, as Havlat's sensitive piano complements Betts Dean's expressively plangent tone

Two young Australians, one with Czech and German origins, the other English and German Ashkenazi, both trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London where they met as students. On their new disc, Kin on Delphian, mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean and pianist Joseph Havlat explore their love of folksong with arrangements by Vaughan Williams, Moeran, Grainger, Britten, Doreen Senior, Canteloube, Bartok, Michael Finissy, Josephine Stephenson, Louise Drewett, Joseph Havlat, Isabella Gellis and Ruth Wall

In her booklet note, Lotte Betts Dean comments, "As two non-indigenous white Australians... we are perhaps always in search of a sense of homeland or belonging. We have also both left our ancestors' adopted home of Australia and are still 'expats'."

The songs on the disc are all firmly in the Western classical art song tradition, that epitomised by Vaughan Williams whose songs were intended to project folksong as art song. On the disc we hear his The Maiden's Lament which is an arrangement of one of the songs collected in Newfoundland by Maud Karpeles. Karpeles and Cecil Sharp would collect folksongs in places like Appalachia and Newfoundland, interested to track older English songs to foreign climes (where sometimes they remained more unchanged than their English counterparts). In The Maiden's Lament, Vaughan Williams takes quite a spare approach at first, and this allows full reign to Betts Dean's wonderfully plangent tone. Throughout the recital she takes a very personal approach the songs, creating performances that affecting and highly personal.

Also on the disc is The Broken Ring, arranged by Doren Horn Senior who collaborated with Helen Creighton on Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia. Little seems to be known about Senior (she became Devon County Music Advisor). The result is distinctly in the Cecil Sharp tradition, the piano relatively discreet, providing support for the voice.

Also less well-known are E.J. Moeran's Parson and Clark. and The Shooting of his Dear where the accompaniments reflect Moeran's own compositional idiosyncrasies and make for a lovely contrast to the better known songs on the disc.

Percy Grainger (born in Australia though trained mainly in the UK), was interested in collecting and arranging folksongs. But Grainger was aware of the gulf between those from whom the songs were collected, and the collectors themselves. In his arrangements, Grainger brought a greater sense of his own personality to bear whilst also intending for the songs to be portraits of the singers themselves. Of the Grainger songs on the disc, The British Waterside, The Pretty Maid Milkin' her Cow and Died for Love were all collected by Grainger himself. The accompaniments reflect the full richness of Grainger's imagination with the composer daring to go where few of his contemporaries dared when it came to folksong. The Twa Corbies already existed and reflects more Grainger himself, and the piano solo Scotch Strathspey and Reel was one of Grainger's imaginative constructs.

British folksong collectors like Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams used pen and paper to collect songs, and rather looked down on those who used more modern technology. Grainger followed the example of collectors like Bartok and Kodaly, using the phonograph to record the originals.

Bartok's Eight Hungarian Folksongs mix material from different collecting expeditions, the first five from the Csik district (then in Hungary and now part of Romania), and the last three are Szekely soldier's songs. Betts Dean really leans into the powerful intensity of some of these songs, particularly in the way she relishes the language. Bartok's piano writing can be remarkably romantic at times. These are not discreet arrangements, but distinct artistic creations though in spirit they perhaps reflect more Grainger than Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp.

All these songs have elements in common: the desire to preserve the original vocal line in as 'correct' form as possible but aligned to a piano accompaniment that creates a sense of art song. Thus enabling the songs to be sung by professional singers in classical recitals. Britten continued this tradition, though he was far less reticent in his accompaniments, probably because the majority of his folksong arrangements were written for him and Peter Pears to give in recital. And here we hear the familiar Sally in our Alley. 

Far more interventionist, perhaps, were the songs of Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne. We hear two, La delaissado and Malurous qu'o uno fenno, though with just a piano accompaniment Canteloube's seductive orchestrations are lacking, and in Betts Dean's performance they come over as far more direct.

With contemporary composers, the route to be taken is more varied. Some follow Britten in adding personality to an arrangement that remains within the more traditional vein, whilst others do something more striking. Josephine Stephenson's Rosemary Lane uses a Somerset folksong and gives it a sensitive treatment that provides plenty of scope for Betts Dean's expressively plangent tones. Louise Drewett's Lambs on the Hillside  sets a traditional Scottish/Irish tune and for the opening she surrounds Betts Dean's voice with sparely placed, suspended chords to create a distinct atmosphere without overly impacting the voice. 

However, in her Montreal Songs, British-Canadian composer Isabella Gellis seeks to reflect the city's different identities - French, English, Jewish - with a French-Canadian song, an English-language one collected by Maud Karpeles and a Yiddish song collected by Ruth Rubin. The first delicate and remarkably touching, yet with the second we could almost be back in England, whilst the in third the vocal line seems to almost recede into the distance. Similarly Ruth Wall's version of My Lagan Love opts very much for supportive discretion, though we are hearing it in Havlat's arrangement.

In, Interlude-Premonition Joseph Havlat does something deliberately sketchy to a Czech folksong, the piano moving well away from the discreet art song and Betts Dean's voice vague in the background. Michael Finissy's piano solo How dear to me uses a tune that was originally associated with Thomas Moore's words The Twisting of the Rope.

As might be expected from these artists, this is a thoughtful and imaginative disc that wanders widely, illuminating connections and bringing out how composers own relationships with the past differed enormously

Kin: Josephine Stephenson, Ernest J Moeran, Percy Grainger, Benjamin Britten, Louise Drewett, Joseph Canteloube, Bela Bartok, Joseph Havlat, Isabella Gellis, Doreen H Senior, Vaughan Williams, Michael Finissy, Ruth Wall
Lotte Betts Dean (mezzo-soprano)
Joseph Havlat (piano)
Recorded on 21-22 January 2025 at St Cuthbert's Parish Church, Edinburgh
DELPHIAN RECORDS 
DCD34362-CD 1CD [77:49]

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